ERISA legal expert A. Richard Susko has traded in his pinstripes for bike gear.
Better known as “Brick,” the former partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP in New York retired in December 2012 and by May was off on a 51-day cross-country bicycle adventure.
Mr. Susko, who joined the firm the day after ERISA passed in 1974, decided to “hang up the spikes and put on the bike cleats,” he said in an e-mail halfway through the adventure, which is scheduled to wrap up June 28.
“People often ask: "How could you walk away from your career?' I loved my career, loved my firm, loved my practice area, loved the pension community, but at some point you got to do things on a bucket list while you can and before you can't,” wrote Mr. Susko, who chronicles the ongoing saga in his blog, http://bricksusko.wordpress.com, allowing armchair adventurers to go along for a virtual ride.
Taking in a host of characters and scenery changes has given him a deeper sense of patience and gratitude, he wrote. “You can't change the wind, you can't make the sun come out or go behind a cloud, you can't stop the rain and you can't make the road flat or smooth. You have to accept things as they are. I hope I can keep that feeling with me when I return to the real world.”
