By Brenda Johnson, Work, Careers and Job @40+
Butch Martin is a Boomer who pushes himself to achievement in his sales career and as an athlete. As he was on the podium in May accepting a bronze medal in the USA Cycling National Championships, Martin said he had to reframe the disappointment of coming in third place differently.
“My 11-year-old daughter reminded me I was not only the oldest guy in my division of the race. I also have a full-time job and two children to care for,” said Martin. He explained that he races against men as young as twenty or thirty-years-old. As a participant in the Hand Cycling division for athletes with lower limb impairment the divisions are built around the level spinal cord injury and resulting disability, instead of age.
Martin remembers not just the date – April 15, 1982 – but the exact time 7:52 a.m., that a crane malfunctioned while holding a 1,000 pound piece of steel, changing his life. “I was looking at the clock because I had something to do at 8 a.m.,” he says. The same mindset that makes Martin a successful sales professional helped him transition from catastrophic injury to para-cycling athlete within a month of the industrial accident.
“After I completed rehabilitation at Methodist Hospital, I competed in my first 1500 meter race in a bodycast. I always have liked to push myself physically.” says Martin. He attributes his recovery and ability to compete throughout the country to the support he receives. “My Mom, Dad and wonderful friends were there for my recovery and now enable me to travel the country participating in racing events.”
Locally, Martin is a 15-time winner of the One-America 500 Festival Mini-Marathon wheelchair division.
As a Territory Business Manager for Invacare, a global company providing medical products and services for the home, Martin travels throughout Indiana working with durable medical equipment business owners, therapists and physicians. With twenty-four years in the industry and twenty-one years with Invacare, Martin shares his advice for working Boomers. Martin explained that as you get older, it is important to stay passionate about your work.
“I meet people daily who have experienced catastrophic injuries. I help put on sports clinics and I love the industry and the company I work for,” says Martin. He advises mature workers to figure out what they love to do and find a job they can get excited about. “At the end of a day I think about what I have done that day. I ask myself if I have done everything I could do at work that day. I think about what I have accomplished for my customers, my company and the people who use my products,” says Martin.
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