Retirement

Calabasas-based home builder Ryland Group Inc. said its chief executive would retire in May and be replaced by the company's current president. R. Chad Dreier, 61, has served as CEO for more than 15 years and will continue as chairman after he steps down May 29. President Larry Nicholson, 51, will take on the CEO title -- and all the problems of the most miserable housing market in decades.

Three months into its fiscal year, Los Angeles still faces a $400-million budget shortfall that could torpedo Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's effort to allow 2,400 city workers to retire ahead of schedule, forcing the City Council to reconsider layoffs. Budget advisors met privately with council members over the last week to stress the magnitude of the financial woes -- the city is spending $1 million per day more than it receives in revenue -- and urge them to take decisive action.

Nick Counter, who as chief negotiator for the major studios became the designated nemesis of Hollywood labor, is retiring after more than 25 years on the job. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers said Friday that Counter will retire when his five-year contract expires March 31. The move was widely anticipated. In fact, Counter, 68, was expected to retire last summer, but those plans were delayed by the ongoing labor dispute with the Screen Actors Guild.

Like the other old men at this Costa Mesa boatyard, where the hulls of peeling sloops and half-made cutters rot on their wooden posts, Karl Markvart can't be certain he'll live long enough to reach the water. Again and again, he's watched the boat builders around him lose their race to the sea, their unfinished vessels hauled off to the junkyard to make room for another boat, another mad dreamer.

MELBOURNE, Australia -- There were the usual pregnancy cravings, of course, but one unexpected desire reached out, grabbed and fairly shook Lindsay Davenport out of her virtual retirement. She was watching tennis at Indian Wells with her husband Jon Leach in March, a few months away from having baby Jagger and months from having to explain to people on an hourly basis that, no, her son's name was not an homage to Mick.

Yvonne Dutton's life was saved by a department store. When she was raising eight children on a meager budget supplemented by food stamps, the Huntington Beach woman didn't have the time or money to shop at Nordstrom. And things got even worse when her 37-year marriage ended in divorce. It was a time when most of her peers were contemplating their leisure years, yet Dutton found herself looking for a new career at age 60. It wasn't long before she found Nordstrom.

EBay Inc. Chief Executive Meg Whitman is expected to announce her retirement as early as today and hand the reins to the successor she has groomed to reinvigorate the Internet company as it wrestles with a slowdown in its auction business. John Donahoe, the 47-year-old president of EBay's Marketplaces group, is the leading contender to succeed Whitman, according to people familiar with the matter.

Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo, under fire over the size of his potential payout from the proposed sale of his troubled mortgage company, says he is forfeiting some $37.5 million in severance pay, fees and perks that he was scheduled to receive upon his retirement. Mozilo, however, will still retain retirement benefits and deferred compensation that he has already earned, Countrywide said in a statement being released today.

Like many Americans, Steve Kriegsfeld has been watching his life savings bounce up and down each time the stock market takes a dramatic turn. Lately, it's the drops that have grabbed his attention. In just one day last week, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 465 points before partially recovering. It is down nearly 6% since Jan. 1. "Does it concern me when it goes down?

He never ran a race he didn't think he could win, and Maurice Greene competed against time and age as valiantly as he could. His spirit was willing. But his muscles and tendons, taxed by years of propelling him out of the starting blocks and driving him faster than almost any human has run, would carry him no more.