Well, its official, I retired on April 30, 2025, leaving Copado, where I had worked for the last 9 months of my career. I’m officially retired before turning 50 (not that was really the goal). I expected to be working until June of 2026, but national politics and a bit of good news got in the way. Two months later, I know it was the right time. I’ve had more time to focus on health and family before we head to the Camino de Santiago and on to Southeast Asia.
We Expected a Busy Year
2025 has been a very busy year for us so far. Summer marks the end of DJ’s Junior Year at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology (TJ) so we expected much of this year would be getting him ready for college applications. Indeed, we’ve had ACT and SAT exams, four Advanced Placement exams, a family trip to London and Madrid to check out business schools, and lots of consideration of which schools are right to apply to.
In the meantime we (mostly Hillary) are working on winding down Dominion Tea, either by sale or just shutting it down outright. Its very hard to sell a small business and we’ve learned a ton. Mostly, we won’t be doing it again.
So, as if there wasn’t enough on our plates, why not throw in retirement.
Did I Want to Leave Copado? Yes and No.
I was reasonably happy at Copado. They create software to improve the software development process for Salesforce in a way that accelerates release of new features with fewer bugs. The software works well and they have tons of devoted users. The company was also leaning into AI in an area that actually works. It wasn’t hype like so many other AI solutions. It actually brought a decade of software development knowledge, plus all Salesforce docs, to the fingertips of developers. New developers or experienced developers can rapidly build user stories, code, test cases, and user docs in a way that saved a ton of time and money and, more important, allowed developers to skip a lot of the tedious, mind-numbing documentation in the profession.
My role as Federal Alliance Manager was enjoyable enough. I wasn’t in love with the job, as I’ve been doing software sales to the government for almost 30 years, but it wasn’t terrible. I was itching to retire so Hillary and I could begin a new adventure. But that also means our son is on his own and that is very much full of mixed emotions. He still has his Senior Year though, so on the surface there was no reason to retire now.
So Why Retire Now, a Year Earlier Than Planned?
Why did I retire now? Two reasons; politics and home values.
Trump is back, again… Regardless of my personal feelings, the presidential transition and DOGE brought massive upheaval to the government contracting process. So much upheaval, in fact, that it made the prospect of sales to the Federal Government, and many states as well, extremely unpredictable. At least for 2025, if not pushing into 2026 as well.
My role at Copado was to build relationships with Government Systems Integrators (think General Dynamics IT, Accenture Federal, and many smaller firms), find new business opportunities to partner with them on, and generally to support the mission of government. Trump and Musk made this impossible in the early part of 2025. Why deal with all the stress. It just isn’t worth it.
That brings me to home prices, and this was a bit of a double feature. First, we met with a realtor in late February and found out that Loudoun County had a very (very very) tight housing market. We also learned that our home would likely fetch about $300k more than we had expected.
We had already planned a budget covering the 10 year gap between June 2026 and when we could tap IRA’s penalty free. However, with $300k more, plus the mess of Government contracting, and the real risk home prices fall over the coming year in the DC area (layoffs of Government Employees, Contractors, and non-profits losing grants from the Government), it just made sense to sell our home early, move into a furnished townhouse nearby TJ, and for me to retire.
What's Next for the Coley Family?
We have about a year until DJ goes to college. We don’t know where that will be yet. It may be in England, Spain or Canada. Or it may be New York City or California. There is an off chance of American University (like his parents), but most likely it will be far away from the DC region. Once DJ is off at college, Hillary and I plan to head first to France/Spain and then to Southeast Asia for some undetermined amount of time (years though). Right now we aren’t sure if we will ever return to the US permanently.
In France and Spain we plan to walk two segments of the Camino de Santiago; the Via Podiensis and the Camino Frances. Via Podiensis begins in Le Puy-en-Velay, southwest of Lyon and continues to St Jean Pied de Port, on the border with Spain. Camino France then picks up to cross the Pyrenes and continues to Santiago de Compostela in the northwest of Spain. All together it will be about 1,500 km or about 930 miles of walking over 75 days or so, while carrying backpacks of 10-20 lbs each.
After our time in Europe, the current plan is to explore Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and the rest of the region, spending 30-90 days in each country and living out of what we can carry in our (larger) backpacks. Each country offers different amounts of time on a tourist visa and the plan is to maximize the time offered in each before moving on to a nearby country — hopefully traveling there by train, bus, or ferry.
We’ve been to Asia multiple times and I’m particularly interested to return to Da Nang and Hoi An in Vietnam. Though we’ve only been to China, Taiwan, and Vietnam, we are excited to explore all the rest that the region has to offer. In particular, we plan to focus on walkable cities, with affordable places to stay, accessible markets, plenty of museums, and access to other cultural attractions.
Summer 2025 to Summer 2026
Two months into retirement, I’ve found a good pattern of climbing, strength training, zone 2 and 5 cardio, and swimming. And then there is our daily walks with loaded packs. Retirement has given me the time to do a ton more activity and reclaim my health. This isn’t to say my health is poor, but decades of sitting at a desk, and less than ideal food choices haven’t put me in the best position for the adventure ahead.
Not to meander too much, but our “healthcare” system in the United States is abysmal. Outside of acute care, the system is entirely built on masking symptoms with drugs; not fixing root cause. All the while, the industry is soaking its patients for as much revenue as possible, putting them on medication they will never come off. All too often you hear of someone who was “otherwise healthy” and this phrase is just crap. All it means is that you don’t have obvious, diagnosed, disease. But that’s far from truly healthy, much less optimal. So I plan to spend the year aggressively improving my health as near to optimal as I can.
Beyond improving my health, during the remaining year in Virginia, I’ve also got plenty of time to take care odds and ends like volunteering at DJ’s school, scanning and disposing of 30 years of physical photos, packing up what isn’t already in storage, and planning our move.
In June 2026 we will move to Florida which will serve as our jumping off point for decades of future travel. We will say goodbye to Northern Virginia, our home since 1994 when we came for college. We’ll drive to Florida to deposit the last items in storage, spend time with family in Port St Lucie and Jacksonville, and if we have time, stop by family in Connecticut as well, before helping DJ settle in at college and flying to France.
It’s going to be another busy year…