The first baby boomers will turn 65 once the calendar switches to 2011, signaling an upcoming wave of retirements nationwide. As the economy recovers from its downturn, thousands of baby boomers are expected to retire as they reach a certain age and feel that they have enough savings to stop working.
This creates a challenge for the companies that employ baby boomers: How to prevent decades of knowledge from walking out the door once valued employees leave for days spent with grandkids and golf clubs.
Discovery Machine, based in Williamsport, has a solution. It figures out how veteran employees make business decisions and go about their jobs, and then maps these strategies into software that can be used to train other workers at the company.
“We feel knowledge is a commodity,” says James McAssey, Discovery Machine’s VP of business development. “We have a way to capture that expertise.”
The firm has garnered several awards, including a product innovation award this spring from the Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Ben Franklin has poured more than $300,000 into Discovery Machine and recently invested another $75,000. McAssey says that money will be put toward the company’s efforts to reach out to more potential customers and increase sales.
Source: James McAssey, Discovery Machine
Writer: Rebecca VanderMeulen