After 55 years, Tiburon Peninsula’s postal pillar calls it a career

Belvedere-Tiburon post office lead clerk Keith Martin is retiring after 55 years with the U.S. Postal Service, 47 of those years on the Tiburon Peninsula. The 73-year-old San Francisco resident has served in several roles throughout the years, including as a window clerk and mail carrier. (Francisco Martinez / The Ark)

When most of the Tiburon Peninsula is sound asleep in the middle of the night, Keith Martin gets rolling.

Martin crosses the Golden Gate Bridge from his home in San Francisco to head to work at the Belvedere-Tiburon post office on Beach Road, where he serves as the lead clerk. He arrives at 3:20 a.m., clocks in 10 minutes later and gets to work. He makes sure tubs of mail are set up for postal carriers, welcomes and unloads trucks and takes care of other duties, from signing for deliveries to bringing a replacement vehicle to a carrier if a truck breaks down to figuring out why a mailbox won’t open.

Martin, 73, is set to retire Aug. 1, capping a 55-year career with the U.S. Postal Service, with 47 of those years spent locally, where he says he developed a bond with customers who walked through the doors.

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