Asked how he intended to occupy his time when he retires as Freeport’s town engineer/public works director on June 9, Albert Presgraves produced what looked like a business card. Atop the card is the word “Magus,” the name of the sailboat he and his wife, Jenny Yasi, bought eight years ago in Puerto Rico, and restored to seaworthy condition.

“That’s what we’re going to be doing for the first year or so,” Presgraves said last week from his office. “We’re going to go down the East Coast in September, and spend the winter in the Bahamas. I’m not going to sit back and watch TV.”

His boat, built in 1971, is 36.5 feet long with a width of 11.4 feet.

When they return, Presgraves will lend a hand with Yasi’s dog-grooming business, Dog Gardens, at their home on South Freeport Road.

Presgraves, 62, said he has been thinking retirement for some time.

“Only because I’d like to retire as soon as I can – not because I don’t like all the people here, which I do,” he said. “I’m going to miss all of it. I’m going to replace it with a whole other thing.”

Presgraves is the latest Freeport department head to reach retirement age in the past six months. Town Manager Peter Joseph made the announcement to the Town Council on April 12. Presgraves follows Beth Edmonds, former library director, and Police Chief Jerry Schofield, both of whom have already left their positions. Fire Chief Darrel Fournier also has announced his retirement, and will leave May 23.

Joseph said that the town will advertise for the combined positions of engineer and public works director soon. Presgraves earns $97,142 annually.

“We’ll miss the sheer amount of work he does,” Joseph said. “That’s his biggest asset. He’s always willing to take on extra work and tasks to get things done on schedule.”

Joseph added that he and other town officials take Presgraves’ recommendations seriously.

“When he says things absolutely need to be done, we take his word for that,” Joseph said.

The two jobs that Presgraves does are a good fit for the town, Joseph said.

“It’s worked out pretty well,” he said. “That’s a pretty common packaging of those duties.”

Presgraves, who grew up in the Washington, D.C., area, graduated with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Virginia in 1976. In 1981, he arrived in Maine to work on an energy resource education program on Peaks Island, where he lived until last year. Presgraves became Freeport’s first town engineer in 2002, taking a job that had been done by consultants.

At the time, he recalled, the economy was “heating up,” and there were many commercial developments that required his review. The town also was being regulated under stormwater discharge permits, which took up another large chunk of Presgraves’ time.

“I document what the town does to maintain and promote clean stormwater,” he said.

Presgraves became public works director in 2011, and he also oversees management of solid waste.

“Each of these things are added-on responsibilities, but we have a competent solid waste team,” he said. “I’m the management-by-exception guy.”

As town engineer, Presgraves also oversees and implements the town’s capital improvement plan. He counts the Burnet Road bridge replacement as one of his biggest projects. Now, he’s working on the closure of the town landfill.

“I did all the engineering for that,” he said.

Albert Presgraves will retire as town engineer in Freeport on June 9.