Meet Lynette Howlett
Lynette Howlett retired in April 2010 after 31 years of City service. During her City career, she worked in Building and Safety; Rec and Parks; CDD; the LAPD; Public Works/Sanitation and /Engineering; and Airports in Ontario.
Her hobbies are reading, cooking, traveling and enjoying activities with family and friends.
In retirement, she keeps busy by traveling, going out to lunch and making day trips to various interesting locations.
Lynette says her family and friends are so much fun! They provide endless entertainment for her, perhaps, unintentionally!
She absolutely loves to travel. When the word “travel” comes up, she says “where do I begin?! I absolutely love to travel. Just tell me when to be ready and how long so I can pack appropriately! I’ll beat you to the airport. One of my goals has been reached with my travel buddies by visiting all 50 states! Our last state was Tennessee! It was so exciting to stand on the highway under the Tennessee state sign, knowing it was our last of the 50! My next goal is to visit all continents. And to date, I have only two left. Then, of course, we have to revisit some states … and there are a lot of countries in Europe to visit and go back to. The list is endless!”
Lynette is involved with RLACEI, LACERS Well, AARP and several Senior Centers as well as periodic involvement with other organizations.
Lynette’s words of wisdom for Retirees, or those about to retire, is to have a retirement activity plan. After working so many years, you really cannot sit idle. You may think that you can, but you cannot. Join clubs, senior activities at parks, or travel the world one place at a time and be sure to keep fit. It really, really matters.
The smartest thing Lynette did to prepare for retirement was to pay off as much of her debt as possible. She felt having 100 percent of her debt but only 70 percent of her salary, wouldn’t work out well financially.
When asked what she misses or doesn’t miss about her years of service to the City of Los Angeles, Lynette responded, “I do not miss the stress, the confusion, the ‘really, he/she just did what?’, the grievances being filed, and being yelled at by constituents and employees. But I do miss the camaraderie, talking to people with different points of view, the pride when a deserving employee was promoted, and the excitement in accepting a new position with new things to learn and do, and people to meet. While I would not trade my retirement status for those things, those things were fun and enjoyable to me.”
Lynette says that, as she reflected on her City career, she didn’t think she would have done anything differently.
“I made conscious decisions about promotions, departments to work in, and positions to accept or decline that could further my career. Most of the departments and people I interacted with were marvelous and supportive.”
She fills her days in retirement doing whatever pleases her: reading, cooking, staring at the ceiling, making lunch dates, playing with her grandchildren; going places with her kids, friends, nieces, nephews, and others; going to dinners; dancing; taking Vegas day trips; and listening to the rain. She says, “Life is good.”
Lynette – if you could change one thing about retired life, what would that be? “To have retired sooner if I could have. But other than that, not a thing. Not a thing!”
