For Tim Ripperger, "60" is a magic number.
That's his retirement age after "about 38½ years" with Missouri's Conservation department.
"I'm retiring just because I'm ready," he explained earlier this month. "I love the work, love the people and I love serving the citizens of the state.
"But I'm ready to retire and pursue some of the things that I want to do."
And those things he wants to do include "probably mostly hobbies and "me' time - I might do a little outdoor writing on the side."
Conservation employees don't have a mandatory retirement age - so, Ripperger said, retirement is a personal decision.
"It probably took me about a year to figure it out in my mind, and make that decision," he said. "But nothing where I woke up and said, "Today's the day.'"
He doesn't expect to miss "the rat-race, the day-to-day issues and problems," but already is missing the people he's worked with over the years, whom he called "some of the greatest Conservation employees or staff in the nation."
From his youth, Ripperger was interested in a "conservation" career.
"I think it was a combination of the love of the outdoors and a couple of influential people in my life - my father (and) a high school science teacher," he recalled. "I think that was a passion that I developed, to go into this field."
He studied fish and wildlife management at the University of Missouri because "I wanted to work for a Conservation department. Missouri was the one I really wanted to work for - but, if that didn't work out, I would have gone on to some other state, or the federal conservation system, somewhere."
Ultimately, he held a half-dozen jobs within Conservation, mostly in Northwest Missouri: Agent, trainer, assistant supervisor, regional supervisor, unit chief and deputy director - the post that brought him and his family to Jefferson City a decade ago.
Ripperger thinks Missouri voters got things "right" in 1936, when they created the Conservation department as a constitutionally independent branch of state government, "to run the conservation, or natural resources, of this state without some of that political drama, at times," and made another "right" decision in 1976 when they adopted the "Design for Conservation" one-cent state sales tax that today provides the majority of the department's funding.
He also thinks the people who designed state reorganization in the early 1970s did the right thing when they separated the duties of the Conservation and Natural Resources departments.
"They have completely separate missions," Ripperger said. "In my observation around the nation, when you combine those two, the people lose because, ultimately, the finances get restricted and there's not enough to go around.
"And one of the two sides, or both, lose in the long run."
Like any agency - public or private - he said Conservation sometimes has communications problems both with its employees and with the people it serves, but tries hard to keep that from happening.
And that includes communicating with people who don't hunt, fish or care about wildlife management.
"Economically, the Conservation department in Missouri is a bit like the goose that laid the golden egg," Ripperger said. "We pay that sales tax back to citizens multiple times over each year - it's about an $11 billion to $12 billion economic engine each year."
Ripperger's passion for his career also has been his outside-of-work hobbies.
"I'm a hunter and a fisherman," he said. "I love to float our float streams in the state," including the entire length of the Missouri River within the state.
He also loves photography and, now that he's not heading to work daily, he wants to spend more time taking pictures "for my enjoyment."
Ripperger and his wife, Sherry, "love to travel - we still are back-packing, even at this "advanced' age," he said.
"One of my goals in the not-too-distant future is to do the Grand Canyon, rim-to-rim, with her.
"And we've got several other trips we're planning or looking at," including spending more time "with our kids and a young granddaughter on the way."
He's enjoyed his career - and would encourage interested young people to follow him into it.
"I was duck hunting (recently) and I got to see half a dozen bald eagles at one time, just in the air, from my duck blind," Ripperger said. "I got to see a couple of otters come swimming through the marsh.
"And some marsh hawks, other types of hawks - plus all the waterfowl that were flying.
"Those are the memories I think I'll really retain - those things you see in the outdoors."