{"id":785102,"date":"2026-07-26T07:16:25","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T07:16:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785102\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T07:16:25","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T07:16:25","slug":"restoring-statues-became-a-new-jersey-mans-full-time-job-at-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/785102\/","title":{"rendered":"Restoring statues became a New Jersey man&#8217;s full-time job at 63"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the trend lines in the American labor market since the pandemic is that people are looking for change. Not just to <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2025\/05\/23\/more-older-workers-are-planning-to-change-jobs-aarp-study-finds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">change jobs<\/a>, but often to get into<a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flexjobs.com\/blog\/post\/flexjobs-workplace-study?utm_source=cj&amp;utm_medium=affiliate&amp;utm_campaign=The+Independent&amp;cjevent=b0e90b68879011f1829d00060a82b821&amp;cjcid=4766554\"> a whole other career<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>Plenty of workers are looking for a <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2025\/07\/08\/why-employers-are-advertising-absence-of-worklife-balance\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">better work-life balance<\/a> and <a title=\"\" class=\"interallink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.marketplace.org\/story\/2026\/02\/23\/why-workers-are-staying-put-in-this-labor-market\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">better pay<\/a>, but some are also looking for more meaningful or fulfilling work.<\/p>\n<p>Douglas Distefano of Rumson, New Jersey is among those American workers making a change. After getting laid off three years ago from a tech company at age 63, he started <a class=\"externallink\" title=\"\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/monument-conservation.com\/about-mcl\">Monument Conservation Partners<\/a>, a business that restores outdoor bronze sculptures, bronze plaques, and architectural medals.<\/p>\n<p>Getting a new venture going is no small feat, though.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a long sale cycle,\u201d said Distefano. \u201cI mean, this project I finished last week in Raritan, [New Jersey] \u2014 I&#8217;ve been talking to the town for three years before they finally found the meager funds needed for me to restore the statue.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Listen in the player above to hear what it takes to run his business and what he gets out of it.<\/p>\n<p>Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the trend lines in the American labor market since the pandemic is that people are looking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":785103,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[334073,334074,228,226,227,144383,229,88,1997,4085,112804],"class_list":["post-785102","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-art-conservation","tag-art-restoration","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-career-change","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-jersey","tag-side-hustle","tag-statues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785102"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785102\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/785103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785102"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}