More than four decades since entering the public arena, former state Rep. John Herzog, R-Colorado Springs, is retiring from the third – and what he says will be the last – state board he’s served on.

Herzog steps down Jan. 1 from the Colorado Dental Board, which sets rules and licenses dentists and dental hygienists, as well as conducts hearings on complaints and metes out discipline when warranted. He was appointed to the 13-member board as one of the three consumer members by Gov. John Hickenlooper, the third governor to call on Herzog. He previously served on the Colorado Securities Board and the Colorado Utility Consumers’ Board.

“I’ve had as much fun as I can handle,” Herzog told Colorado Politics with a chuckle, adding that he’s traveled with groups of Colorado dentists to Argentina and India and helped them treat children.

The dental board, Herzog noted, involved significantly more work than the other boards, with around 20 hours a month devoted to reviewing complaints filed against dentists or hygienists on top of adjudicating the complaints at meetings and implementing regulations and policies.

“If there’s discipline and their licensing involved,” he added, “that’s pretty serious stuff.”

Herzog served on the Cheyenne Mountain School District Board and was elected to three terms in the Legislature in the 1980s. He chaired the House Education Committee and sat on the Local Government and Transportation and Energy committees. During his six years, he carried and passed 35 bills and resolutions.

A key accomplishment Herzog recalled was getting a representative from Colorado Springs on the state highway commission, which had previously relied solely on a Pueblo resident for advice on that part of the state. “At least Colorado Springs got the presence they deserved, because we were much bigger than Pueblo,” he said.

President George H.W. Bush later appointed Herzog to a position at FEMA, where Herzog worked as special assistant for marketing and communications to the federal insurance administrator, which runs the national flood insurance program.  He retired from that position and returned to Colorado Springs in 2005. He and his wife, Leslie, celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2014.