LANSING - No one keeps statistics on people who keep the same job for four decades.

But if they did, it would likely be a short list - and now, it's even shorter with the March 23 retirement of Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council Administrative Assistant Mary Bechtol.

Mary began her employment for the council as a secretary in November 1966. She had been working as a secretary for the manager of the Lansing Civic Center, but was pregnant with her son - and at the time, pregnant women could be laid off after their first trimester. Mary's sister worked at a business down the hall from the office of the Michigan State Building and Construction Trades Council, and let council President Stan Arnold know that her sister was available for an open secretarial position on his staff.

"Stan asked me if I knew how to type. I told him I did, and he said, 'you can start on Monday.' I've been here ever since," Bechtol said.

Most of her job description included letter-writing, taking phone calls, planning conventions and conferences and taking minutes at board meetings. Every now and then her job has allowed her to meet the famous - Richard Nixon, Al Gore, Hubert Humphrey, Hillary Rodham Clinton Gov. Jennifer Granholm - and the infamous, Jimmy Hoffa.

"You see these people on TV and it's kind of neat say that I've been able to meet them," Bechtol said. "But I think it's some of the more regular people I've met over the years who have been the most interesting."

During her career, Bechtol has talked to thousands of building trades officers, secretaries and workers. In some cases she has watched three generations of family members go to work in building trades offices and out in the field.

Office hardware has changed, with desks morphing into "work stations" and typewriters going the way of the dinosaur, but Mary said that's not all that has changed over the last 40 years. "It used to be a lot of agreements were done with a handshake; your word was good, and things got done," she said. "Today, everything is spelled out in a contract, everything is legal."

Patrick Devlin, CEO of the council, said "Mary has been an institution at the Michigan Building Trades. As she retires she takes with her the good wishes of generations of building trades officers and office staff from around the state who have gotten to know her and appreciate her depth of knowledge and experience."

Devlin said Maurine Homola, a secretary at the council for 29 years, will assume Bechtol's duties.

In the immediate future as a new retiree, Bechtol said "I don't know what's next." She said she enjoys gardening, reading, bowling and is active in her church and looks forward to spending time with her son Floyd (a Millwrights 1102 member) daughter-in-law Ellen and two grandsons. "With one in five people in this country functionally illiterate, I'm thinking about working with the Literacy Coalition here in Lansing," she said.

Stan Arnold, who hired Mary, said "she was always on time, very efficient, and did her job well. She was an employee who everybody liked."

Last week Mary said she's "trying to get into the groove" of retirement. "I met a lot of nice people along the way," she said. "I hope I did as much for them as they did for me."

MARY BECHTOL, on her last day on the job at the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council.