Mail carrier Dennis Schultz, who retired Jan. 2 after nearly 41 years with the Postal Service, was lauded by his colleagues and family for going "above and beyond" for the downtown Bel Air customers he has served since 1981, but Schultz just sees it as providing good customer service.
"He gives customer service beyond what anyone else would do," fellow mail carrier Mike Androsky, 58, of Forest Hill, said. "He takes care of his customers, the old, the sick; he'll go out of his way to treat them with the respect that they deserve."
Schultz, 61, of Forest Hill, said actions such as giving money to homeless people, sending mail and providing stamps to customers and even visiting customers in the hospital are all just "part of being human."
He said that, over the years "you form a bond, a relationship, with your customers."
"You become part of the business family or part of the residential family," Schultz explained. "You share information with them."
Androsky, who is also a veteran mail carrier with nearly 39 years in service, has known Schultz since they worked together in the Edgewood post office during the mid-1970s.
They also worked in the former Bel Air post office on North Main Street, which is now the home of the Historical Society of Harford County, and they moved on to the Bel Air post office's home on Blum Court near the Harford Mall.
Androsky said Schultz has also been a leader in youth sports leagues in Forest Hill as well as being a leader in the local postal union.
Schultz' customers on Main Street are between Courtland Street and East Gordon Street, and Androsky's route picks up at Broadway and heads north up Rock Spring Road.
"When I first started, he took me out a couple times and showed me the ins and outs of delivering mail," Androsky, who was 19 when he started working for the Postal Service as a part-time employee in Edgewood, said.
Androsky noted Schultz, who was 20 when he joined the Postal Service in April 1974, wore his hair long in the fashion of the mid-1970s, and they worked with men who served in the military during World War II and the Korean War a generation earlier.
He said their co-workers had "close-cropped hair" and dressed in a "very regimented" manner.
"He was a long-haired guy," Androsky recalled. "He was like the hippie in the post office at the time."
Last day
Androsky and the rest of Schultz' co-workers, as well as Schultz' wife, Jean, and son, Matthew, celebrated Schultz' final day on the job last Friday.
As Schultz and his fellow mail carriers prepared to go out that morning, Bel Air Postmistress Kay Hunter presented a USPS proclamation to him. His co-workers also gave tributes.
"I'm proud to have served, because it really has been a great job," Schultz told the assembled postal employees.
Hunter said later that Schultz is "one of the best carriers I've ever seen."
"He's personifying what we say by 'being the brand,'" she said, referring to a Postal Service campaign through which mail carriers are encouraged to be the face of the USPS brand.
Schultz and his wife, Jean, have been married for 31 years. They have two children, Matthew, 30, and Stephanie, 28, and Stephanie's first child is on the way.
They also have three dogs.
"Dennis has loved what he's done for 40 years, and lot of it is because of his relationship with his customers," Jean Schultz said. "He's gone to visit people in the hospital, he's helped customers move, he's just done a lot of things."
Matthew, who is an assistant manager with Klein's Shop Rite on North Main Street in Bel Air, expects his father will enjoy retirement.
"He's going to enjoy it." Matthew said. "He's going to continue with his yard work, get to relax after 40 years. The dogs are going to love him."
40-year career
Schultz said he started with the Postal Service when he was "a month shy of 21."
He started in 1974 as a "part-time flex" employee, sorting and carrying mail in the Edgewood post office, which was in its former location near the gate of the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.
He was born in Baltimore, the son of an auto mechanic and a homemaker. His family moved to Fallston in 1969, and he graduated from Bel Air High School in 1971. He spent one year at Harford Community College, and then he joined the Postal Service after he saw a newspaper advertisement.
"I figured it was a government job," he said. "I figured it was a good career choice."
Schultz said he spent three years in Edgewood, and then he transferred to Bel Air during the summer of 1977.
He said transferring to Bel Air was a good career move because of the growth in the area. Schultz noted the number of city routes within the Town of Bel Air and its outskirts has grown from 13 during the 1970s to as many as 30.
He said there are about 28 city routes in Bel Air today, and there are about 25 rural routes serving Churchville, Abingdon, Fallston and Forest Hill.
Schultz became a career mail carrier in 1981, and he took over City Route 12 in downtown Bel Air. As of his retirement, City Route 12 included Main Street between Courtland and East Gordon, and then between Bond Street and McCormick Street, which is behind St. Margaret Parish.
"I've always liked Bel Air," he said. "It's just a nice town."
Schultz said there are 320 stops along City Route 12, which he said is a "park and loop" route, where the carrier stops his or her truck and walks in a short loop to drop off mail for each customer, then moves the truck and repeats until the route is complete.
"It's just an all day affair, but it's all walking, other than moving the truck," he said.
Schultz gave a rough estimate that he walked three to four miles each day, including sidewalks and stairways.
He said the majority of retail businesses popular along Main Street when he was a teenager have moved away and have been replaced by professional service companies such as tax advisers, law firms and engineering firms.
Schultz noted that Frederick Ward Associates is in the building at 5 S. Main St. that was previously occupied by a Woolworth's five and dime store.
He called being a mail carrier "the best full-time job I've ever had."
"I liked it from the beginning," he said. "I like being outdoors, and that's one of the perks of the job, because there's more nice days than there are nasty days in the course of a year. You get a nice, 75-degree, sunny day out there, and you can't beat it."