If he were still alive he would definitely be retired by now and I'm sure I could ask him. With that some conjecture on my part... Despite being top of his fie

If he were still alive he would definitely be retired by now and I'm sure I could ask him. With that some conjecture on my part... Despite being top of his field he was a professor, department head, and dean at a state school (University of Illinois). The current department head (according to the Illinois Salary Database) has a total compensation of $177,386.64 annually. Adjusted for inflation to the last year he as was alive (2010) this would have been roughly $142,000. Considering the level of education, work load, stature, etc this isn't exactly impressive. Being in tech my first position when I was 21 years old I was making more money than his salary at the time (2006 or so). Additionally, shortly after taking the department head position at UIC they were consistently ranked as a top 3 OT program by US News. His income was supplemented by adjunct professorships around the world, book sales (almost nothing from what I remember), and speaking engagements. More important than income was maintaining stature and standing in the field to if nothing else keep the department ranking. I'm sure there was plenty of pressure from the university on that. It's not difficult to imagine this is a vicious cycle. Between "publish or perish", the pressure to maintain department and personal standing, etc all of this was essentially part of the game. He was a total package deal across the board. From what I understand the model he developed is the most widely practiced OT model in the world (to this day). At a certain point I suppose a decision to "get out of the game" and maintain nothing other than his professorship could have very well resulted in losing everything - I don't know that tenure could even have saved him from that. Even though he made practically no money from book sales more or less "writing the book" in his field was the vehicle that drove the entire thing. It's not hard to imagine that getting off the treadmill could have resulted in him being relegated as a washed-up has-been to a C-level program somewhere.