After working at the National Security Agency for 31 years -- a job she can’t talk about -- Chineta Gamble is hard at work on this next phase of life called retirement.

“I’m still trying to work things out,” she laughs.

On a shelf outside her door is a Japanese doll, which was presented to her at a conference in Japan where she was the sole female. It’s one of the few things she treasures.

“They’re just things, after all,” says Gamble, who didn’t find it hard to part with most of the “stuff” she’d accumulated over 33 years of living in Columbia before she moved to Vantage House.

So how does she fill her days now that she’s retired? Not a day goes by where she doesn’t do some kind of exercise.

“Keep moving,” she says. “That’s the key.”

Born in South Carolina, Gamble, together with her five sisters and one brother, learned early about reaching out and helping those around her. Many years later, Gamble still tries to reach out and be of assistance, particularly to young people in need of a helping hand or sympathetic ear.

With a regal stance and a penetrating eye, Gamble jokes about a man asked to write his resume. After handing in the paper, filled with his life’s accomplishments, it’s crumpled up into a little ball and tossed clear across the room. Then the man is asked: “Now, who are you?”