GAIL RENTSCH 

Gail is a Founding Member of The Transition Network. In 2000, she recalls being among some twenty other women gathered to help build an organization where women could share their concerns and aspirations as they moved from their primary careers to something else. Gail became an early TTN advocate, joined one of its first peer groups (whose monthly meetings she still looks forward to attending), served for several years on TTN’s Leadership Counsel, and has helped the organization develop in various directions, including defining its “Pride of Age” recognition effort. The idea for a TTN book was a natural outgrowth of her own transition process, bringing together something she knew well – book publishing – something that ignited her passion – the idea of women forging new roles once again – with her desire to support an organization she respected – The Transition Network.

Gail retired from her primary career in 2004, after twenty-four years as founder and president of a successful New York City-based public relations agency with clients that included book publishers, authors, non-profit institutions, and corporations. Prior to that, Gail had been a book publishing publicity executive.

In retirement, Gail and her artist husband divide their time between New York City, where she is committed to several volunteer activities, and a farm in Upstate New York, where she practices dressage and raises asparagus to zucchini and lilies. In addition to writing, she also works on behalf of a primary school in Tanzania, and currently is creating a pilot program to further the development of libraries in Africa.

Gail’s son, Dennis, is based in the Serengeti region in Tanzania, where he leads an ecological project for the Frankfurt Zoological Society.

Gail is also a co-author of The Whole Horse Catalog, first published by Simon & Schuster in 1977. That book has gone through three revisions, multiple printings, and remains in print today. It is Gail’s hope that her new book will last nearly as long.