What if 100,000 people launched 10-year Encore Careers? “That would mean one million years of service dedicated to areas like education, poverty and the environment,” say Marc Freedman and Phyllis Segal of Civic Ventures, in the introduction to the 2008 MetLife Foundation/Civic Ventures Encore Career Survey.

What if just 5 percent of all 80 million boomers take the plunge, generating 40 million human-years of talent? “Applying this human talent and experience to the big challenges of our time could be as profound a contribution as those made possible by new technologies or even massive infusions of philanthropic dollars,” according to Freedman and Segal.

That enormous potential — as many as 8.4 million people may already be in their Encore Careers, and fully half of all boomers express interest – is echoed in the commentaries accompanying the new Encore Career Survey.

Webb McKinney, a longtime executive at Hewlett-Packard, writes that “there is a large, mostly untapped opportunity to leverage the skills of people retiring from the corporate world to help nonprofit organizations.” In “The View from a Corporate Baby Boomer,” McKinney praises programs like IBM’s Transition to Teaching program, which helps veteran IBM employees become math and science teachers; the FedExperience program, which channels employees into federal jobs; and California’s EnCorps initiative, which recruits retiring math and science professionals for teaching jobs through private employers.

The encore career “will become a major transformation in the adult life course that is seen as normal,” writes Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota and coauthor of The Career Mystique: Cracks in the American Dream. In “Understanding Why Some Pass on the Encore Career Concept,” she says the key is offering employees more control over the time and timing of their work, including more part-time encore careers. “Some combination of meaningful work and time for relaxation may be especially practical and welcome for Americans in their 60s and 70s, and for some in their 40s and 50s as well,” she says.

Beverly Ryder, who left a career at Citicorp and Southern California Edison to help revitalize Los Angeles public schools, gives a first-person perspective in “Not Easy, but Worth It.” For her, it was listening to an inner voice that got louder and louder, “that sense that I should, I could, be doing more.” Although her encore journey was tiring and frustrating at times, she has found her new role tremendous satisfying and concludes, “I feel that everything I’ve done in my life up to now has been preparation for this big step.”

In “Bookend Generations Offer New Hope for America,” Ellen Galinsky points out that companies are already adapting to the demands of younger employees for meaningful work and flexibility. Galinsky, president of the Families and Work Institute, writes, “Flexibility for employees in their early, mid and late careers will allow all of us to truly be involved with our work, our families, our community and our world.”

U.S. Rep. John P. Sarbanes says the survey reveals that our nation has a tremendous opportunity to engage more boomers in encore careers. In “Baby Boomers Want to Serve, Let’s Give Them the Chance,” Sarbanes cites the Baltimore Experience Corps program as a good example of a program that channels retirees into public service. “If we are not ready, this demographic wave will crash over our heads – a wasted opportunity,” he writes. “But if we anticipate the potential of the baby boomer generation, that wave can help lift up our society and propel it forward.”

For the full survey, press release, thought pieces and charts, go to the Civic Ventures Encore Career Survey page.