WESTBROOK – George Tevanian has probably pushed close to 10 million carts in the last 47 years working as a cart attendant in Westbrook.

Here’s the math: Working close to 40 hours per week, every week, he estimates that he’s handled around 100 carts an hour, meaning he has pushed and pulled and chased after 9.7 million carts, give or take. Through rain, sleet, snow, bitter cold and brutally hot days, Tevanian, 65, has walked the parking lots keeping them free of carts in parking spaces and helping customers.

At the Hannaford supermarket in Westbrook, where Tevanian has worked since it opened in 2003, it seems everyone knows him. His name is called out in the parking lot by shoppers, and fellow employees high-five him as he walks by. Here, Tevanian is a star.

But this star is ready for some time off.

Tevanian plans to retire on his 66th birthday, Sept. 28. After pushing carts for nearly half a century, first at Martin’s Food while still in school in the late 1960s, and then at Hannaford, Tevanian said he’s looking forward to doing nothing for a while.

“First I’m going to relax and do nothing for a year,” Tevanian said this week. “In another year, I may think of something [to do]. I’m going to be 66 and it’s time.”

Shopper Diane Winton said that Tevanian brings something special to the store.

“It’s sad, he’s such a fixture in the community,” she said.

“It’s just nice to see him. I always look for him and go out of my way to say hello,” said her husband, Kenny Winton.

Tevanian, who lives in Portland, first started working as a shopping cart attendant April 1, 1966, after his mother helped him get a job at the old Martin’s Food location in the shopping center now known as Westbrook Crossing.

“I was still in school and it was my mother’s idea, she wanted me to have a job. John Martin gave me the job, it just happened. He said I could work without getting paid, but I got paid,” Tevanian said with a smile.

Tevanian stuck with the job even as the store changed owners. Shop ‘n Save – now called Hannaford – subsequently bought the Martin’s building and Tevanian stayed put.

He now has put in more time than most Hannaford employees, said Bo Hamlyn, manager of customer service at the Westbrook store.

“Nearing 47 years is unheard of, especially in one position at one store,” Hamlyn said. “He’s a great associate. Our stores are really built around the customers and everyone knows him and he knows everyone. You can’t replace George. He’s an icon in Westbrook.”

Hamlyn said he would miss not only Tevanian’s hard work ethic, but also his young heart.

“The thing that sticks out for me about George is he loves the pirate genre. Whether it’s a new earring or a new ring, he loves that genre and showing those off. I took a trip to St. John’s and St. Thomas and he asked me if I’d run into any pirates. He’s a kid at heart. His personality is why everyone is going to miss him.”

Tevanian isn’t quite sure he will stayed retired after he leaves Hannaford and takes his year to relax. If he does go back to work, he said, it wouldn’t be pushing carts.

“It’ll be in a different area,” he said.

Despite missing the people – his favorite part of the job, Tevanian said – he does not regret his decision and actually had planned on retiring last year, but needed to stick around until 2013 for monetary reasons.

“It had to happen sooner or later,” Tevanian said.

George Tevanian, a shopping-cart attendant at Westbrook’s Hannaford supermarket, is retiring in September after 47 years on the job.