Lynn Dines ’78

“It's not what you do while you're there. It's what they do when you're gone.”

Lynn Dines ’78, who earned her B.S. in psycho-biology, has adopted that as her slogan. Dines took early retirement from a successful career as a pharmaceutical executive with Eli Lilly and Company and at age 52, joined the Peace Corps.

Dines has been engaged in volunteerism all her adult life and joining the Peace Corps was a culmination of a dream. She spent a 27-month stint in a rural village in Morocco called Ribat el Kheir where she ran a basket-weaving co-operative for women, teaching them business fundamentals. Only four of the women she worked with were literate and the villagers spoke Darija, a Moroccan dialogue that has no written component.

Dines, who lives in Huntington Beach, helped the women move from basic weaving to making marketable products. She provided guidance for product development, business training and workshops. Two of the women received computer training under a grant she secured for them.

Friends and family had a range of reactions to her news that she was joining the Peace Corps, where the average age of a volunteer is 28. “It was a combination of pride, envy and some who simply thought I was crazy,” she says.

What led Dines to this unusual career path at a time when others are in a countdown to retirement? “After I took early retirement at 51,” she says, “I became more active as a volunteer. The death of both of my parents in the year after I retired freed me up to consider something like this.”

Every retiree who can join the Peace Corps, should, she says. The oldest active Peace Corps volunteer is 86 and stationed in Morocco.

“It’s good to keep the brain working. You’ll live longer. And the Peace Corps can be as stimulating as you want it to be,” says Dines.

Dines says she deeply admires the Peace Corps’ model of grassroots-level sustainable development. The key, she says, is what happens when you’ve moved on and the work needs to continue for progress to occur.

“It’s the tagline on my blog and my signature now,” she says, “It's not what you do while you're there. It's what they do when you're gone.”