After a successful career at Walmart, Jeff Shipley retired from the company in 2021 at 45 years old.

He started as a frontline store manager in 1998 before moving to Walmart’s home office in 2001. Over the years, he worked in multiple areas of the company, taking opportunities as they came his way, including roles in employee recruiting, merchandising and finance.

Just a few years into retirement from corporate America, he found himself in an entirely different field, working full time as a second grade teacher at Thaden School in Bentonville.

Shipley’s final posting at Walmart was as a senior finance professional in Japan. When he returned to Bentonville, his two kids were adjusting to life back in the United States, and it felt like a good moment to hit “pause” and consider what might come next.

“Being able to help the kids reacclimate was just a really good opportunity for me to decide what I wanted to do,” Shipley said.

At the time, his kids, who are now 11 years old, attended St. Vincent de Paul Catholic School in Rogers, where Shipley began substituting. He also helped with Thaden School’s summer camp programming and later picked up substitute teaching shifts there.

Thaden School opened in 2017 with 7th and 9th grades and has expanded into other grades in phases, with plans to serve grades K-12 by the 2026-27 school year. As the private school added faculty, administrators asked Shipley if he wanted to join as a full-time staff member. At first, he declined. 

“I was really happy just working as a substitute and helping fill that need, helping support the community since my kids are going there. That was my plan,” he said. 

But “they just kept asking,” Shipley said. He started full time in the fall. 

Melissa Sherman, Thaden’s head of lower grades, said Shipley was a natural fit.

“First of all, I love career switchers, because I think that people who have gone and lived a career in another industry can bring a lens to those of us who have been in schools our whole lives,” she said. “And Jeff has such a gentle way with kids, and he just has that teacher spidey sense that I look for in new teachers. That's something that you can learn and be taught, but some people have it automatically.”

As a matter of technicality, Shipley is an assistant teacher who shares classroom management with a lead teacher. But it’s teaching all the same, Sherman said.

Looking back, a pivot to education might not have been entirely out of left field for Shipley.

During his undergraduate studies at College of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, he considered a career in higher education, with plans to earn a PhD and teach business courses.

He enjoyed learning theory, including case studies about Walmart.

“And then I got an internship at Walmart in the store and found out that the theory wasn’t the reality. And that really bothered me,” Shipley said. “So I thought, ‘I should probably work before I go and get my PhD.’”

He intended to return to graduate studies after a few years of corporate work but found he enjoyed it, leading to his decades-long run at the retailer.

Overall, Shipley said his first year in the classroom is going well.

“Some days are harder, some days are more challenging, but overall, you're working with kids,” Shipley said. “They want to learn, but they also like to have fun. I know that sounds dorky and cliché, but it's the reality.”

He said that some of the skills he honed during his Walmart career transferred over. Teamwork and resolving conflict “are all things that we use on the playground today,” Shipley said.

The job has also required plenty of on-the-job learning. (One of those adjustments – which other educators will sympathize with – is learning to plan his bathroom breaks ahead of time.)

Shipley celebrated his 20th wedding anniversary in early December. Months earlier, he had mentioned the upcoming anniversary in passing to his students. When he arrived at school that day, one of the students remembered the date and gave him a homemade card.

“The kids are so attentive, and you often don't realize how much they are absorbing,” he said.

The career pivot was unexpected, and Shipley isn’t exactly sure what the future holds. But for now, he’s happy right where he is.

“I've been very fortunate to have a great career with Walmart, and I loved that,” he said. “But at this point, I'm in a different place. I'm just looking to help and to engage in something that feels like giving back.”