Early Retirement
Mindi Keirnan, general manager of the San Jose Mercury News, fulfills a
lifelong dream by retiring at 45 to travel and live abroad.
By
Kathryn S. Wenner
Kathryn S. Wenner, a former AJR associate editor, is a copy editor at the Washington Post.
Doubtless eliciting the envy of many, San Jose Mercury News General
Manager Mindi Keirnan retires just before her 46th birthday, saying she
and her husband, former journalist Kevin McGee, plan to travel and live
abroad. Keirnan, who worked in high school as a part-time clerk at the
Tallahassee Democrat, rose to managing editor for news at the St. Paul
Pioneer Press before jumping to the business side when then-Knight
Ridder President P. Anthony Ridder recruited her to be his assistant in
1994. Three years later, she became vice president of operations with
responsibility for 10 newspapers. She joined the Merc in 1999. "This is
something my husband and I have been planning and saving and preparing
for since we met each other," says Keirnan. "It was not a question of
if. It was always a matter of when." A visit to Ground Zero, she says,
solidified their decision to do it now. First stop: Cambodia, to visit a
friend teaching Western-style journalism. ###
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