He has been in municipal government for 37 years.
Steve McDonald, CAO for the Town of Muskoka Lakes is now putting a rubber stamp on his own retirement papers.
He leaves after just three and half years in the role but says a lot has been achieved in that time.
“The current council, as well as the previous council, were very supportive of some of the initiatives that staff brought forward,” he says praisingly.
The variety of work and challenges that came with it are what kept the job interesting.
“You just never know what’s going to be on your desk or what’s going to come across your desk on any day,” McDonald offers.
He points to the good working relationship with both the current and former councils for making progress in a number of areas.
“It’s very accommodating,” he admits. “Very easy to get your job done whenever you have got a supportive council.”
He says getting more information out to the people that pay the tax bills was a big achievement.
“One of the things I am most happy about is the increased communication,” he says. “I think we still have got lots of opportunity to increase our communication to our ratepayers, but we’ve done I think a decent job of increasing the messages that we get out to the public.”
He says over nearly four decades of work in the public sector he missed a lot of time with his kids when they were younger. Now, as a grandfather, he won’t make the same mistake twice.
“It’s time,” he says emphatically. “Over 37 years there were times I couldn’t be around for my kids or my wife. You miss the hockey games or the baseball games so it’s time to give back. So I’m going to spend some time with family and our new little granddaughter.”
McDonald and his wife will be moving to Brockville after he wraps up his final days with the Township of Muskoka Lakes.