For two to three days a week, 71-year-old Foothills Lincoln Mazda service valet Art Zastrow gets up at 4:30 a.m., arrives at the service department an hour later, makes coffee for staff, and has the dealership’s gates open for them by 6 a.m.

“This is just something I didn’t think I’d be doing at this point in my life,” Zastrow says. “And I enjoy it. I enjoy being active at this point in life.”

The majority of Zastrow’s eight-hour shifts involve providing shuttle service for Foothills Lincoln Mazda—located at 202 E. North Foothills Drive on the North Side—to customers who have dropped off their cars for servicing and need transportation to either home or work.

In addition to shuttle driving and opening the service department in the morning, Zastrow also works as a file clerk, organizing hard copies of work orders performed by service staff on customers’ vehicles. Foothills Lincoln Mazda’s human resources department says seven of its staff of 65 workers both full- and part-time are over 65 years old. 

Meanwhile, a mile east of Foothills Lincoln Mazda at 1720 E. Fairview, Craig Walker, the general manager of Durham School Services, says 35 percent of the company’s more than 307 employers are over 55. Of Durham’s 307 workers, 215 are school bus drivers, he says.

“They’re fantastic workers and great with kids,” Walker says.

As the American workforce has grayed in the last quarter century, what once constituted traditional retirement has changed as well. 

The National Council on Aging says that by 2019, more than 40 percent of Americans 55 and over will be employed either full or part time and will make up more than a quarter of the U.S. labor force. Last year, workers aged 65 and up outnumbered teenage workers for the first time since 1948, the NCOA says.

The U.S. Department of Labor says between 1995 and 2007, workers 65 and older working full time nearly doubled, while the number working part time rose by 19 percent.

Meanwhile, in Spokane County, the share of workers ages 55 and older has increased steadily from 11.2 percent in 2000 to 22.6 percent in 2015—more than doubling—while the percentage of all other monitored age groups has fallen during that period. That’s according to the Community Indicators of Spokane Initiative, led by Eastern Washington University’s Institute for Public Policy and Economic Analysis. Statewide, the percentage of older workers has grown at a similar rate, the data showed.

Although the population of older workers has increased in part due to financial necessity, those interviewed by the Journal said mostly that money didn’t play a role in their decisions to continue working, whether part time or full time.

Zastrow says he’s in a good financial position and chooses to work. A Spokane native, he retired at 55 as a plant manager at a U.S. Post Office in Boise.

“The truth is that I retired too young. Looking back, I was tired of dealing with the unions and having to deal with employees. But not long after retiring, I realized that I still wanted to work,” Zastrow says.

He moved back to Spokane and for the last 12 years has been employed at Foothills Lincoln Mazda in a variety of capacities but mostly as a shuttle driver.

Zastrow replaced one family member who was working as a service valet there, and he’s worked with two other family members at the dealership, he says.

“Even if you don’t have to work for the money, it’s important to stay active,” says Zastrow.

Zastrow’s relief driver is 71-year-old John Zent. Though he’s eligible to retire and can afford not to work, Zent says he refuses to at this point.

“Why should I retire,” says Zent who up until this year spent the past 26 years working as a salesman at Foothills. “Working gives me a great reason to get up in the morning. Why the hell would I retire?”

Tom Lyons, who lives on 23 acres of property that borders West Spokane and Cheney, feels the same way as Zent.

“I’m probably a workaholic,” says the 69-year-old Lyons who has had jobs ranging from making money as a boxer in his teens to once operating his own limousine service. “I just don’t even know what I would do if I retired.”

Lyons, also a former teacher, works as a substitute teacher for local school districts, farms his property, works as a plumber and as a roofer, drives sedans and limousines, and does smaller-sized construction projects for friends and family, sometimes at no cost, he says.

“I just put a roof on a friend’s shed,” says Lyons, who when reached on the phone by the Journal was en route to a friend’s house to fix a septic tank. “It makes me feel good helping people. I love being in the classroom. Kids are great.”

“I think for me working just contributes to my all-around good health,” he says.

Over at Durham, Walker, who is 62, says he tried to retire once but got bored after about 15 months. He retired from UPS Inc. as a driver after an almost 30-year career there.

“One day, my wife came home, looked around the house and said, ‘You’re bored,’” Walker says. “I had completely rearranged the furniture. She didn’t like it, had me change it back, and I thought, ‘Yeah, I probably need to go look for a job.’”

Walker has now worked for Durham for the past five years.

“It was hard being retired. That honey-do-list is long, and it never ends. If you’re going to work that hard you might as well get paid,” he says.

Christy Botner, safety and training coordinator at Durham, says the company relies heavily on older drivers.

“Our oldest driver is 87. We have only 20 drivers who are in their 20s,” Botner says. “Most of them have told me through the years they love doing this job because they enjoy being around the kids.”

Bob Sargent, 69, says he’s been driving school bus periodically over the last 15 years.

“It keeps me busy. I’ve seen friends retire who six months later are either in a retirement home or in the ground,” Sargent says. “I’d rather stay physically and mentally busy.”