At age 80, Ron Kaiser was already well past the time most people retire when he finally ended his career as one of the area’s premier advertising men a decade ago.

But even when he gave up the day-to-day intricacies of conceiving and handling ad campaigns for clients, it never occurred to him to quit working.

“The typical things people do when they retire don’t interest me much,” he said. “I enjoy traveling, but I get bored with it. I’m not much of a golfer, and I’m not really a ‘bucket list’ kind of guy. But the one thing that did want to try was writing.”

The Franklin Park resident said the motivation to get started came with the stark realization that “80 is a pretty prominent number when you read the obituaries in the newspaper. Death has a way of giving you a wake-up call.”

“Through the years, lots of people told me I should write a book, so I’ve always had that idea in the back of my mind. But even though I’d written copy for thousands of ads, I had no idea how to approach writing books.”

Kaiser, now 90, said he got to work by setting up a small office in his basement and forced himself to write.

“I blocked out a couple of hours a day and headed down to the cement block basement with the cobwebs and an old door for a desk and just starting writing whatever came to mind.”

After the routine took hold, there was no stopping Kaiser.

He worked through numerous failed attempts at storytelling before settling on a “book I promised myself I would write.”

The effort resulted in his first book, “Herbert’s War,” which chronicles the life of Kaiser’s childhood friend, Army Lt. Col. Anthony B. Herbert, who served in the Korean and Vietnam wars. Herbert was a highly decorated veteran who is best known for his claim that he witnessed war crimes in Vietnam that his commanding officer refused to investigate.

His most recent book, a work of fiction based on real-life characters titled “Slippery Slopes,” is a thriller set in a Western Pennsylvania ski resort.

A third book Kaiser has completed, “The Whiz Kid,” tells the story of Pittsburgher Earl Belle, who “skipped to Brazil with 27 suitcases, many of them filled with other people’s money,” according to publicity for the book, which is expected to be released by the end of the year.

Kaiser said he decided to self publish his books after hiring a literary agent who told him publishing companies wouldn’t be interested in working with someone his age.

“The agent told me they only wanted writers who could produce at least two or three books for them, and they wouldn’t think I’d be around long enough to do that,” he said. “And even if I had a publisher, it would take a year or two for the books to get to the public.”

Kaiser concedes his finished work is not as polished as it could have been if he had the benefit of an editor and publisher.

“The reason I’m putting these books out one right after another is that at my age, I don’t have time to be waiting around for that to happen, he said. “I’d go the traditional route in heartbeat if I had one.”

A winding road to publishing

Raised in the small coal-mining town of Herminie in Westmoreland County, Kaiser said he joined the Army during the Korean War by duping a physician into approving him for military service by hiding the scar from hip surgery he underwent as a child that would have made him unfit for service.

After his discharge, Kaiser worked in a steel mill before deciding to attend the University of Pittsburgh, where he says he managed to take “junior and senior courses illegally.”

After he married, Kaiser dropped out of Pitt before graduation because he “had to find a job to support a family.”

After a short stint doing public relations for the American Red Cross, Kaiser landed a job at Ketchum, one of Pittsburgh’s major advertising companies at the time.

“I took a journalism course in my freshman year even though it wasn’t allowed, so that’s all I had going for me,” he said. “I never even took an advertising course, but I was in the advertising business.”

Kaiser said he learned the basics of business “from a book I bought at the old Kaufmann’s (department store) for a couple of bucks.”

“I had no idea what to do, but I used that book and just starting plunking it out,” Kaiser said.

Despite being successful at his job conceiving, developing and executing ad campaigns, Kaiser felt out of place in the corporate world and eventually struck out to launch his own agency.

“I didn’t like corporate culture, where you had to wear a hat, high socks and a shirt and tie,” he said. “I spent money to buy a hat for the first day and ended up losing it. I wasn’t happy.”

Kaiser said freedom from the constraints of working for a corporation provided the creativity he needed to grow his business, but over time being the leader of the company grew tiresome.

“I closed the business because I realized that I really hated being a boss,” he said. “I was never any good at it. But I did like doing the work.”

Kaiser continued as a freelancer and worked on scores of political campaigns along with work for clients such as the Turnpike Commission and the Sheetz convenience store chain.

And while he was finally ready to put the day-to-day grind of advertising behind him at 80, he still wasn’t ready to rest.

“I never stopped working a day,” he said. “So when I finally decided that I was going to write, I blocked off a couple of hours a day and went down to the basement to work.”

Kaiser said while he lacks formal education as a writer, his years in advertising taught him that creativity is not something that can be summoned on command.

“You don’t sit down and say to yourself, ‘Let’s be creative now,’ ” he said. “I don’t think it works that way. Creativity comes from continually being curious and inquisitive about how and why things are. If you ask a lot of questions and don’t get satisfactory answers, then maybe you’ll start to see an opportunity to write.”

Editor’s note: Neighbor Spotlight is a monthly feature that aims to let our readers learn more about the people in their communities who are working to make them a better place, who have interesting stories to tell or who the community feels deserve “15 minutes of fame.” If you would like to nominate someone as a Neighbor Spotlight, see northjournal.com, select the “Post Story” button in the upper right corner and complete the form to publish your nomination. Questions? Email Neighborhood News Network editor Katie Green at kgreen@triblive.com.

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