Her stock tip is, don't give up
Sexism once kept her from being a broker, but she never gave up
Each month "Transitions" profiles an individual who has significantly changed his or her work life and highlights the techniques used to make the changes.
Cecile Goff's early ambitions were to work in the investment industry. She was deterred from pursuing it , but ultimately was not to be denied.
It took her more than three decades to get there, but Goff is philosophical about the long journey.
"Things happen for a reason," she said. "I've worked hard and had a good life."
As a freshly minted Boston University graduate in 1961, Goff set off for Wall Street and her first job in the investment world. Her father had always done investing on the side and Goff had taken an interest in it. But she soon learned the bite of discrimination. An agent at a staffing agency in New York told Goff to forget being a stock broker and go to secretarial school. He emphasized his point, Goff recalled, by telling her that there weren't any bathrooms for women; all the brokers were men.
Amazed at what she had heard, Goff persisted. When the only offer she got was an unappealing position in the insurance industry, she decided to move on.
"The opportunities for women just were not there," Goff recalled. "Things were different then."
So Goff took a job as a high school science and math teacher in Danbury, Conn. Three years later she married and moved to California where her husband, an engineer, took a job with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology. Goff taught junior high school in Pasadena.
The couple, with two children, moved back east when Goff's husband was hired by Keene State College; a third son was born soon thereafter.
She worked part time at Keene State, administering grants in two women's aid programs. She also volunteered and served on several nonprofit boards, later becoming head of the board of Monadnock Family Services.
But divorce in 1979 sharpened Goff's focus on income, especially as a single parent with three boys approaching college age. With a new master's degree in counseling, she took a full-time job at Monadnock. She had a variety of responsibilities, including serving as an outreach worker, supporting parents and families, working with special needs children, and later with partners of Vietnam vets, the elderly, and the mentally ill.
By 1995, she had worked her way up to director of outpatient services. But the consistent lack of funding had made life difficult for her and taken its toll.
"After 17 years, it was time for someone else to fight the battles," Goff recalled.
Uncertain of her next step, Goff found her fascination with the stock market returning. Not only had she managed her investments since she was 19, but she'd handled her father's after he died in 1987.
One day in late 1995 during a meeting with her broker at Edward Jones, where she had an account, she looked across the table at him and said: "How did you get a job like yours? I'm interested in doing that, too."
Fortunately, times had changed since 1961. The St. Louis-based firm was looking to expand in the East and to hire female brokers to attract more women clients. Goff's broker had the company contact her.
Although she had no formal investment experience, Goff sensed "they were attracted by my successful working life and my self-motivation." She also believed her experience as a math teacher reassured the firm that she would be comfortable with numbers. After several weeks of intensive training led to certification, Goff opened an Edward Jones office in Walpole, N.H., north of Keene, in mid-1996. She has run the office since.
She initially took a pay cut from her previous earnings of around $50,000 a year, but within six years had achieved her prior income level. She now earns roughly double what she did before.
Money, though, is not the motivation.
"It's a people business, and I'm a people person," Goff said. "It's about helping people. I think of myself as a holistic practitioner. I care about my customers and their lives."
Goff now has several hundred clients, mostly individuals and families, ranging in age from 19 to 96.
Of her 35-year wait to get into the business she always wanted to be in, Goff simply said "It just wasn't in the cards."
Now 67 years old and a grandmother, Goff conceded she doesn't have to work for financial reasons at this point. "I do it for my own sense of being," she said.
The energetic Goff said she is not contemplating retirement. Edward Jones has no mandatory retirement age. "As long as you have energy, ambition, and drive, they'll keep you on," she said.
Goff also cited an aunt who was a role model for her. She become a doctor in her 30s, a lawyer in her 50s, and is still working full time at 72.
"I come from a family that believes if you like what you're doing," Goff said, "you just keep doing it."
If you have a career transition story you would be willing to share, send e-mail to transitions@bostonworks.com. Please include your name, phone number, and a brief description of your career change. 