There are plenty of people around technology that have no idea how it works. You might even get one for a boss someday lol. A lot of what it takes to make a company successful is managing people as much as the product. Since one is a retired ATC, he definitely has experience in leadership and that can be more valuable to management than how well he can code on a whiteboard. Just because they are new to programming doesn't mean they lack real world experience. There are far more times you need a person with street smarts over book smarts. Unless he's trying to be a professional athlete, its never too late.