Beginning work with the New Zealand Shipping Company on January 5, 1966, as a "general dogsbody", Mr Burgess (60) ended his career as a port agent for Port Otago on Tuesday.
"It has been a great job. You are learning all the time."
During his 43-year career, he has worked for the New Zealand Shipping Co, which became P&O in 1970.
He then worked for Port Otago from 2000.
For the past 25 years, he has worked as port agent, with one of his responsibilities to greet vessels when they arrived and to liaise with each captain.
The job meant he was on-call and would often have to leave his Dunedin house in the dead of night to meet an incoming ship.
"But you get used to it."
Supplies, medical requirements and recommendations on what to do in Dunedin were just some of the requests from ship captains, he said.
Port Chalmers was often the last port of call before vessels left for Europe via Cape Horn, and "it was vital they stocked up on supplies and that their ship was OK".
To understand life on a vessel, he also went on two trips with a container ship from Fremantle, in Western Australia, to Port Chalmers and "I loved every minute of it".
