Craig Simpson, president of McCann-Erickson Advertising, has retired from the agency and plans to spend the summer at his home in Creemore, Ont. golfing and deciding what his second career will be.

Since coming back to Canada to head McCann, Toronto in 1993, Simpson has been candid about his desire to step down sometime during this year, his 30th in the business.

Simpson, 52, says he feels good about the decision.

‘I can’t remember a time when I did not plan to have a second career,’ he says.

‘Everything in my life, career, getting married, kids, mortgages, education payments, all happened very early.

‘This is my summer – finally.’

Simpson says he wanted to get into the agency business from the time he was 19 years old.

He began his career right out of journalism school in the media department of Leo Burnett, in Chicago, later moving into the account side, and then spending time in creative.

Simpson was with Burnett for 14 of those 30 years, and with McCann for the last 16. For 20 of those years, Simpson has lived and worked in Canada.

Simpson first took over as McCann president in April 1983.

In August 1991, he moved to McCann in Atlanta as senior vice-president responsible for the Coca-Cola account and was replaced in Toronto by Gunnar Wilmot.

Two years later, he returned to head McCann Toronto and Wilmot relocated to McCann, Germany.