AUGUSTA — Capital Area Technical Center Director Scott Phair is retiring to spend more time riding, writing and rafting, while he still can.

Phair, 60, of Manchester, has been head of the regional technical education center in Augusta, which takes students from eight surrounding school systems, for the last eight years. Previously, he was principal at Waterville Senior High School from 2001 to 2004.

Additional Photos

Scott Phair is retiring as the director of the Capital Area Technical Center in Augusta at the end of the school year. Staff photo by Andy Molloy

After 36 years in public education, Phair feels the time is right to retire.

“The programs here at Capital Area Technical Center, I feel like they’re in really good shape,” Phair said. “There’s a good group of people here I think are going to carry on with the programs and services we’ve worked hard to get. I could keep doing this job another 10 years, but that wouldn’t change the fact the people we have here now are really good.”

Phair said he also wants to take advantage of being in good physical shape to enjoy staying active in retirement, whether rafting or riding his motorcycle.

Phair, who is married to Maranacook Middle School teacher Karen Laverty, said he also plans to spend more time with his grandchildren. He also hopes to revisit a journal he kept while serving with the Peace Corps in Afghanistan in 1975 and 1976, with a goal of writing about his experiences.

School Superintendent Cornelia Brown said Phair brought exciting programming to the tech center and will be missed. He also had the benefit of previously working as a high school principal, so he understood secondary education from both the high school and technical center perspectives, Brown said.

Brown said it is her recommendation, as well as the preference of the tech center’s advisory board, that Phair be replaced with another full-time director, rather than combine the position with another job.

Phair said among the things he’s most proud of in his time in Augusta is an increase in technology, and the creation of the Business Careers Academy, a new program of study at the school that involves both classroom learning and students spending time in the area business community. He said he sees the Business Careers Academy as a prototype for other courses to come in the future.

Phair said the only regret he has is a feeling that’s common for retiring educators: There is still more work to be done.

“As an educator, you always feel there is unfinished business,” Phair said. “We don’t work in a business where there is an end. Schools can always be better. The work remains to be done, and I know there are wonderful people here who will pick it up.”

Phair’s resignation letter goes to the Augusta Board of Education at its meeting 7 p.m. Wednesday in council chambers at Augusta City Center. It will be the board’s first meeting in the chambers, after meeting for years in the cafeteria at the tech center and auditorium at Cony High School.

Board members on Wednesday are also scheduled to:

* Consider changing the health insurance carrier for non-union and administrative employees to Aetna Insurance. Insurance is currently provided to most covered Augusta school employees by Anthem Blue Cross, through the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust.

* Consider approving a 3 percent salary increase for non-union employees.

* Consider new staff nominations.

* Consider several new or modified policies, as part of an ongoing update to school policies.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

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