If I had to do it over again, I probably would want to get started sooner.

My name is Terry Haney, and I am a consultant on dealing in the area of contingency planning. I work for state and local governments on a wide variety of planning issues. I formed my own business about 20 years ago after having worked for a company in a variety of capacities. I was becoming somewhat bored with the activities that I had been promoted into, and I decided at that time that I would like to get involved in some other kind of work.

Fortunately for me, the company had a small contract at the time that developed multi-agency organizational planning for fire departments. I asked to be assigned to that project and was assigned to it. After a few years, I realized that is the type of work that I could do on my own. And as a result, I opted to take on that project on my own.

But first of all, I went to the company, and I asked them if they would be willing for me to come back to work for them on a consulting basis until that contract became final. They agreed to that, and I then checked with the client to see if the client would be willing at the end of that contract for me to take it on my own, and the client was willing. So with those two approvals, on my 20th anniversary, I left the company, came back to work the next day as a consultant, and I worked as a consultant for nine more months with the company, and then took the project over myself.

In retrospect, looking back at the project, I think that the advantages to doing this were, to the company, they could get rid of the administrative activity associated with this small contract. And secondly, they didn't have to pay my fringe package. The advantage to the client is that the client got a lot more hours out of my time than they did when I was employed because of a much lower overhead rate. And, of course, the advantages to me were that I was self-employed, was my own boss. I could more or less set my own hours and feel the satisfaction of having known that I was the sole performer on this activity.

If I had to do it over again, I probably would want to get started sooner. But I have no regrets for what I did and when I did it, and certainly I'd do it again.