Those contacts are worth a ridiculous amount of money. Niche consulting for the enterprise can yield literally millions of dollars/a year in support for a client like UPS. An Alpha setup.. I'm guessing OpenVMS? Mission critical to their business. Whatever support contract they're paying HP, he can join any big-name tech consulting firm, play golf with the CIO or purchasing authority in charge of maintenance/support and just _happen to mention_ he moved firms.

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.