Michael Weschler / Courtesy photo Wilma Melville was a retired teacher when she founded the Search Dog Foundation.

Wilma Melville was a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher from New Jersey — and a grandmother with four grown sons — when she decided to launch an organization dedicated to training the nation's most highly skilled search dogs.

"I went to Oklahoma City," recalled Melville of Ojai, now 72, who founded the national disaster Search Dog Foundation after being deployed with her black Labrador retriever, Murphy, to the terrorist-bombed federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

Melville and Murphy covered large areas of rubble looking for buried victims, saving precious time for firefighters.

"At that point, in 1995, there were only 15 advanced certified disaster search dog/handler teams in the entire U.S.," Melville recalled. "It was obvious to me that we would be crippled by any large-scale disaster with so few FEMA-certified teams. Somehow, there had to be a way to train more, and to train them faster, in a more cost-efficient manner."

With that, she founded the Search Dog Foundation in Ojai, an organization that has had a tremendous impact on urban disaster response in the nation as a premier disaster search canine training organization.

"The Search Dog Foundation is one of the best, if not the best in the nation, in training urban search and rescue dogs," said Charley Hurley, deputy chief of special operations for the California Office of Emergency Services. The foundation's 68 teams have responded to local disasters including the La Conchita mudslide, and to national disasters including Sept. 11 and Hurricane Katrina.

Melville's efforts were recently recognized by Civic Ventures, a think tank and program incubator that named her one of 15 finalists for the 2007 Purpose Prize.

Now in its second year, the Purpose Prize is a three-year, $9 million program investing in social innovators over age 60; it is the nation's only large-scale award for those working to solve critical social problems in the second half of life, according to Marc Freedman, president of Civic Ventures, co-founder of the Purpose Prize and author of a new book, "Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life."

Creative solutions

The 15 Purpose Prize finalists, chosen from more than 1,000 nominees, have used their years of experience to come up with creative solutions to problems ranging from global warming to infant mortality, from hunger to the dropout rate of Hispanic youths, from inadequate foster care to disaster preparedness, Freedman said.

"As baby boomers leave their midlife careers and continue working into their 60s, we are experiencing the biggest transformation of the American work force since the women's movement," Freedman said.

"One of the most interesting and significant developments from this transformation is the emergence of social innovation and entrepreneurialism from people over 60," he said, "and there are no better examples of these pioneers than the Purpose Prize finalists."

The Purpose Prize will award each finalist at least $10,000. Five of the finalists, to be announced in September, will win $100,000 each.

"The Purpose Prize finalists are taking their wisdom, their skills and, in some cases, their savings to engage in work that has meaning beyond themselves," said Jim Emerman, director of the Purpose Prize program and vice president of Civic Ventures.

People like Melville "are at the forefront of a burgeoning movement that's reshaping the second half of life and having an extremely positive impact on their communities," Emerman said.

Melville and Murphy

After retiring from a career as a physical education teacher, Melville indulged her yearning to have a highly trained dog — and tapped into the knowledge of Pluis Davern, a nationally renowned dog trainer in Gilroy, Calif., who worked with her and her black Lab, Murphy.

Her goals remain ambitious. In 2006, she put out a call to Californians for a donation of land to create a national training center to serve Southern California and the country. The center would provide professional training for new and existing search canines and handlers and act as a training resource for all U.S. canine search teams.

"For folks my age, it's not about getting up off the couch, it's about not getting stuck there in the first place," she said. "One's golden years can be the best, the most productive time of life.

"I am truly honored to be counted among this group of Purpose Prize finalists in my generation who are making such amazing contributions."