Jan Cullinane is the co-author (along with Cathy Fitzgerald) of the best-selling book, The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life (Rodale). Their book was widely acclaimed and the first edition reached the number two ranking on both Barnes&Noble.com and Amazon.com. The second edition was published in 2007.

Jan has appeared on TV both nationally and locally, has conducted more than 60 radio, Internet, and television interviews, and has written or been interviewed for numerous newspaper and magazine articles.

Through their company, Retirement Living from A to Z, Jan and Cathy conduct retirement seminars. Clients include AARP, the Ford Motor Company, the Smithsonian, Wachovia Securities, the Federal Government, Deloitte & Touche, Fifth Third Bank, Amenity Communities Marketing Summit, United Way, Ameriprise Financial, and Realty Presentations, Inc.

Jan has a B.S. and M.Ed. from the University of Maryland. She is the Retirement Expert for the NABBW (National Association of Baby Boomer Women), and a contributor to Vibrant Nation, Ocean Breeze and Let Life In magazine. She lives in Palm Coast, Florida with her (retired) husband, has three children, and thinks the word "retirement" itself should be retired. She can also speak backwards fluently!

How did you get to where you are now?

My background includes teaching at the college level - Anatomy & Physiology, Microbiology, and Health Psychology.  I also ran the Science/Math Department at my college.

After several moves (corporate moves because of my husband's profession), I decided to write a book for people like me - those who were starting to think about their live's second acts. That's how The New Retirement: The Ultimate Guide to the Rest of Your Life(Rodale) came to be.

How do you see yourself differently now than you did 10 years ago?

I don't think I'm too much different from ten years ago - my biggest change was from my 20s and 30s - as I got older, I became more of a risk taker, and had less fear of the unknown. I developed more confidence, and became more resilient in the face of adversity.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Hopefully, I'll be making the world a better place for others through volunteering and contributing to worthy causes, and I'll still have the same wonderful relationships I now share with my husband, three children, and son-in-law.

My mother, who taught me to swim (she confided years later that she didn't know how to swim - just the theory) and she instilled in me a love for knowledge and the necessity of following through on commitments; my sister Joyce - she was the first of us six kids to go to college, and I followed in her footsteps.