From personal experience, I want to add some long-term expectations about commanding premium consulting rates -- especially as it relates to vendor-proprietary knowledge.

I used to work for an enterprise software firm and was on their "crisis firefighting team". I'd travel to customer sites at less than 24 hours notice and fix their worst problems. These were the problems that were escalated to the CEO.

When I left the company and struck out on my own as a freelance "subject matter expert", I was able to command $300k a year for a few years. My background and rate was easy to sell: I was trained directly by the people who wrote the software.

The thing is that I always knew I was living on borrowed time because that high income was based on my previous association of being in the "inner circle" of how the software works. I had to diversify my skills away from that software because with each year that passed by, I became more of an "outsider" just like everyone else.

To relate to your dad's situation ... yes he's very good at what he does, but some of that value may also be his inside feed of information from HP. After he's separated from HP, as each new generation of server & printer hardware is released, his "aura" of HP knowledge can become outdated and less relevant value for customers. In other words, he needs to charge whatever premium rate he can, save as much as he can, all with an eye towards diversifying his income. Diversity could mean new tech skills such as learning AWS architecture or buying real estate to get income from rental properties.

At least get him to take a long look at those contracts. Heck, he might be released from them on severance.

Talk to him about it. No matter what happens, it's going to be a rough time for him. If he feels safer going and looking for work, good for him, there's no judgement. But you make it sound like he really needs to take care of his family. Just keep this option in mind. Time is on your side, for now.

He doesn't have to go on-site to UPS to bring that business over to another firm, and when you build up _30 years_ of trust, that Rolodex and trust is worth 50x the best technical engineers ability (in terms of generating billables). He's in a great position. Senior Partners at McKinsey aren't paid millions because of their ability to put together a nice deck. They're paid that way because they have 20 years of billables and reliable after-work. If he's laid off and not picked up in 2 weeks, tell him to e-mail me.

I worked at a large company that used HP hardware with large, multi-million dollar contracts and a lot of our business went out to these smaller companies. The level of service that your father can provide is important to large enterprises. If your father doesn't want to start his own company, someone else will. He should start talking to his colleagues and his boss - maybe someone is already thinking of starting something.

These sorts of layoffs can create opportunity for people like your dad. HP can't just lay off that many people without hurting parts of their service line.

You should do a few things.

1 - Contact an employment attorney and see if they can determine if he signed a non-compete. If it helps, I was involved in two scenarios (in Minnesota) where I signed a non-compete and went to work for a competitor. Both times, the judge threw out the case saying the company couldn't keep me from being gainfully employed if I wasn't going to disrupt their business. It was a hard sell since I was going to a startup and they were a fortune 1000 company.

2 - Tell your Dad to start planning as if he will get laid off. Start putting together a plan for his own business. Contacts, companies, phone numbers, information on their equipment - anything he can get his hands on. In short, start stockpiling information now. The more he has, the sooner he gets off the ground. Also, start talking to people to see how motivated they would be to start something on their own.

4 - Tell him to dust off his resume and start sending it out to recruiters. I know for a fact there's a ton of HP hardware vendors or re-sellers that could use his experience.

In short, start planning for the worst. Hopefully he gets through this, but he should assume the worst and hope for the best. If he does get laid off, he's already ready to hit the ground running instead of wallowing about being a company for so long. Trust me, companies would die to have a guy with his contacts and experience. This is by no means a dead end or career ending by any stretch.

Some examples: GLG (Gerson Lehrman Group) Cognolink AlphaSights

It's not hard.

i personally bootstrapped my startup with 0 outside funding by doing commercial i.e. "enterprise" software consulting on a platform i had experience in from two jobs ago, with my partner, for 2 years. we each booked about $250k of revenue a year for 2-3 years before the work dried up after several buyouts etc. by then our 'real' business was self sustaining.

it's time-capped, and you'll have to hustle for the work, but you can bill an outrageous sum of money that will pad their retirement and help secure their future in an otherwise shit situation.