On the Thursday morning before Thanksgiving, 87-year-old Brad Shaw relaxed in a brown suede easy chair as a quartet of movers carefully packed his belongings.
A year and a half earlier, Shaw and his wife, Brenda, had moved to their daughter’s lakeside home in North Hero so that she could care for them. Brenda died months later, and now Shaw was experiencing health problems of his own. Needing even more support, he was moving to the Residence at Quarry Hill, a senior living community in South Burlington.
He’d enlisted the help of Second Act Senior Transition Services, a moving management company that provides assistance exclusively to older Vermonters. Second Act does more than pack and transport boxes. It offers a menu of services to help ensure a smooth moving day: The company helps clients donate or sell things they no longer need; mediates among family members; buys furniture for the new dwelling; and even hooks up televisions and hangs clothing.
In Vermont’s moving-company landscape, Second Act occupies a unique niche. Its founder, Donald Rathgeb Jr., takes pride in his personalized approach, meant to put seniors and their families at ease during what is often an emotionally fraught time.
“We respect them and treat them with the compassion and dignity they deserve,” Rathgeb said.
Vermont is the third-oldest state in the country, behind only Maine and New Hampshire. As a result, businesses designed to cater specifically to seniors are in high demand, whether they provide housing, home care, medical supplies or moving services.
Several Vermont moving companies focused on seniors have come and gone in the 10 years since Second Act launched, Rathgeb said. Currently, Second Act is the only one in the state that’s a member of the National Association of Senior & Specialty Move Managers, an international trade organization. To join, movers must complete four online courses on subjects such as safety and contracts. They further have to carry general liability insurance and sign a code of ethics.
“It is very complicated, daunting work,” said the trade organization’s co-executive director, Mary Kay Buysse. Move managers who work with seniors often encounter challenging situations, such as people experiencing dementia or family members with less-than-noble intentions.
But it’s also gratifying work, she said. Downsizing isn’t always about loss — often, moving into senior housing expands people’s lives and makes them feel less isolated.
Rathgeb, a 60-year-old Burlington resident, worked in corporate sales for MCI and Verizon for 25 years before starting Second Act. At first, he used his father’s small pickup truck and a garden trailer to transport items. He took any job he could get, including cleaning out the homes of hoarders.
His business has grown steadily, thanks to word of mouth and good relationships forged with senior living communities. He just bought his third truck and is so busy he cannot take every job. He estimates that he works with more than 300 families a year, primarily in Chittenden County. For bigger jobs, he enlists the help of larger moving companies.
Second Act was named in honor of Rathgeb’s late parents, Donald and Joanne, who for many years ran Saint Michael’s Playhouse, the theater at Saint Michael’s College. And the business has turned into a family affair. Rathgeb’s wife, Cherie Bergeron, joined Second Act five years ago. Her daughter, Shannon Kinlund, came on full time in 2021. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Bergeron’s son and a Burlington paramedic and firefighter, lends a hand on days off.
The company charges $85 per hour per employee. That hourly rate is a bit lower than the average moving company’s, though Second Act often ends up spending more time with clients, Rathgeb said.
The family members work together in a manner that Rathgeb describes as “almost orchestral.” He plans moves with clients and is particularly good at hanging things on the wall and tidying up; Bergeron, a tech expert, takes care of billing and other paperwork; Kinlund and Fitzpatrick assemble furniture and move heavier items.
Though Kinlund is petite, she’s “strong as an ox,” Rathgeb noted.
On the day of Shaw’s move, the four of them made quick work of packing up his bedroom and living space. Shaw had provided the movers with a detailed inventory of everything that was going with him. That included an antique chest built to hold handsaws that had belonged to his grandfather, with the original saws still inside, and a handsome gold wall clock.
“Can I take the pendulum out?” Rathgeb asked Shaw, as he carefully removed the clock from the wall. He handed it to Shaw so he could show him how it worked. Shaw turned it around in his hands, noting that he’d received it as a corporate gift for his 25-year anniversary of working at IBM.
The movers loaded Shaw’s belongings in under an hour and headed to the Residence at Quarry Hill, where Shaw and his daughter met them.
The crew quickly set up the new apartment. They tucked Shaw’s easy chair into a corner of the living room and topped a bookshelf with family photos, including one of Shaw and Brenda, both 18, on their wedding day.
Kinlund and Fitzpatrick assembled a new bed frame and strategized with Shaw and his daughter about where the dresser and side table would fit best. Bergeron hooked up electronics while Rathgeb hung pictures and spoke with Quarry Hill staff.
Once the bedroom was arranged, Shaw, already settled into his chair, signaled approval.
“That looks great,” he said.
Past clients also offer praise. Myke Esposito, 87, hired Second Act in 2018 to move her husband into a memory-care unit. She turned to the firm again when she relocated to her daughter’s house in the town of Georgia and once more when she moved to a senior living community this summer. Esposito likened Rathgeb and his crew to “wonderful family friends.”
They “are so extremely courteous and caring,” Esposito said. “They put things away for me … They did exactly what I asked for.”
Ellie Bushweller, 85, called on Second Act earlier this year to help her move from her longtime home in South Burlington into the Residence at Shelburne Bay. Her husband of 60 years died in 2021, and it took her a few years to get through what she described as “the acute phase of loss and grieving” before deciding to move into senior housing.
Second Act helped her navigate the move “in such a caring yet efficient way,” she said. Its workers donated her books and introduced her to the owner of an auction house who sold some of her more valuable possessions. The company moved some of her furniture to her sons’ homes in Williston and South Burlington and connected her to a musician in Virginia, to whom she donated her late husband’s baby grand piano.
“I felt lighter with them there,” Bushweller said. “It was emotionally and physically exhausting for someone my age, but they gave me a real emotional lift.”
Rathgeb has collected some good cocktail-party stories since he started Second Act. He once discovered a wedding ring under a mattress while cleaning out a couple’s condo; they had lost it eight years earlier. On another job, he came across a purse hanging in a closet full of items about to be donated to Habitat for Humanity. The purse contained a secret stash of $100 bills, amounting to tens of thousands of dollars.
But the most satisfying part of the job, Rathgeb said, is setting up his clients’ new home just the way they want it and seeing their reaction when they walk in the door.
When his senior customers are happy, Rathgeb said, so is he.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Haulers With Heart | Second Act helps older Vermonters make a smooth transition into new housing”
This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.
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