A Washington resident who’s facilitated the day-to-day operations of the 13th busiest airport in the state is soon to retire.

Mike Maxted has been the Washington Municipal Airport’s manager for 16 years, with six years of leadership on the airport commission. A part-time employee, Maxted has been called to the airport at all times of the day to help a pilot jumpstart a plane engine or assist with the fuel farm. As he nears his 70th birthday, Maxted decided now was the time to retire, with his last day Tuesday. He shares one of his favorite aspects of the work, “Meeting a lot of interesting people. The pilots on the field are great to work with, we have some of the lowest fuel prices in the upper Midwest so we get a lot of cross country traffic stopping to fuel up. I’ve met people from all over the United States and Canada stopping in to fuel up or fuel up and stay overnight in Washington, providing them courtesy cars, so on and so forth so I’ve met a wide variety of people and some really interesting individuals.”

Though he enjoys flying model and real-life airplanes to this day, Maxted looks forward to spending his new free time visiting all of Iowa’s state parks with his wife of 50 years Mary. He believes he’s leaving the airport in good hands, as he’s spent the last few weeks training the next manager Joyanna Rae, who has an extensive background in aviation. Hear more from Maxted during Monday’s Halcyon House Washington Page on air and at kciiradio.com.