Becoming a Rookie Again – John Fisher

Time for an Upgrade? The honeymoon period doesn’t last forever in retirement. The free Retirement Drift assessment takes five minutes. It’s not a report card. No right answers. If you want to get started on working on the new Future You, that’s exactly what the Designing Your New Life in Retirement program is built for. Six group sessions with 6 to 10 people doing the same, and a structured way to move from putting it off to designing. The September cohort is enrolling now with two scheduling options. Learn more here | Sign up here _____________________________ What would persuade a successful professional to trade seniority and compensation for beginner status, and six months of Police Academy training at 70? For John Fisher, the answer was not reinvention for its own sake. It was the chance to keep growing, serving, solving problems, and feeling fully engaged. Before becoming a Ranger, John spent more than 20 years at Sony Pictures Television, including as supervising producer of The Young and the Restless, where he won six Emmy Awards. His earlier career included work with HBO and key roles in launching MTV, VH-1, MTV Europe, and The Comedy Channel. His next chapter didn’t pop up overnight. It grew from volunteering. One opportunity led to another: EMT certification, a seasonal Ranger-Assistant role, ranger training, and eventually the Río Hondo Basic Police Academy. There, surrounded by much younger recruits, John became California’s oldest graduate of a basic Police Academy, class president and was voted Most Inspirational. In this conversation, John explains how he handled the demands of the academy, why age brought advantages as well as limitations, and how three simple criteria (learning something new, helping people, and having fun) guided his choices. His story is dramatic, but his approach is accessible. Becoming a Ranger may not be your thing, but what small experiment might open your own unexpected next chapter? John Fisher joins us from California. _________________________ Bio John Fisher is a Ranger with the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, a local park agency with extensive property in the Santa Monica Mountains. He joined the MRCA as a volunteer in 2024. After attending the Rio Hondo Basic Police Academy in 2025, Fisher completed field training and became a generalist ranger in 2026. Prior to the MRCA, Fisher worked for Sony Pictures Television for over 20 years as a supervising producer for “The Young and the Restless,” where he won six Emmy Awards. Earlier, Fisher worked on the NBC Enterprises syndicated daytime program, “The John Walsh Show.” He spent 11 years with HBO as a production executive, where he supervised a wide range of programming, including “Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher,” “The Chris Rock Show,” “Reverb,” and “Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist.” His experience encompasses key roles in launching MTV, VH-1, MTV Europe, and The Comedy Channel, as well as numerous producing and consulting credits for broadcast, pay cable, syndication, corporate, and home video projects. A longtime member of the Television Academy, Fisher has served on the Daytime Peer Group Executive Committee and the Daytime Awards Committee. He has been involved with community and educational endeavors and has volunteered with his homeowners’ associ