FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) - For nearly two decades, one man has been a driving force in making sure Fort Wayne has access to high-quality public television. It's what makes Bruce Haines Positively Fort Wayne as he prepares for his next chapter. "People will often say, "You'll wake up and you'll know." Whether it's because you have new aches and pains you didn't realize you had been carrying along for a while. Or, you have ultimately realized that what you wanted to accomplish in your professional career was enough. It may not have been everything, but it was enough," said Haines. Bruce Haines has had enough. Well, enough to feel fulfilled. Haines started as PBS Fort Wayne's General Manager and president in 2008. "Just in time for the Great Recession. The recommendation would be to never start a new job in a bad economy. Life lesson number 1." This is also the time PBS would be switching from analog to digital transmissions. You can now watch PBS Fort Wayne on Hulu with Live TV subscription "So all of a sudden now, everything we thought we knew was just about to go into a blender. You know you had the set-top boxes, and where's my signal? And then from there, the journey into the great unknown opens up into instead of one signal you can offer five channels of programming…the pace and change of it all has been quite exciting. So it really has been not stepping into the same stream twice." Coming from a radio background, Haines also stepped into the on-camera stream. PBS needed a host for its Friday night forum, Primetime, and Haines found himself in the host seat. Haines also found himself in a new stream when 2020 rolled around. The COVID-19 pandemic brought a lot of uncertainty, but Haines says this is when he and his team really shined. "It's uncharted territory. The handbook had no section on "What if you get COVID?" None of that. But because of public TV being somewhat unconstrained from the boundaries of commercials or schedules, we were able to do that public service in a much more broad way and on a regular basis. We brought in phone banks of physicians. We would circle the room here with conversations with different professionals to address different aspects of the pandemic. And we would do that week after week in concert with the hospital community, the Department of Health… when you're able to answer that community call, and someone says, "You're public service media, what does that mean?" It means that kind of thing, taking the roads less traveled and being as responsive as you can. And that worked as an incentive for us, and we still feel good about it." "The difference that I've seen over the past 8 years is just night and day. We started doing some really, really cool things without ever sacrificing quality or any of the community connection, looking at expanding for new audiences," said Megan Flohr, PBS Fort Wayne board chair. "You know, look, you've always got the kids coming up. I mean, PBS Kids, it's the best thing. Everyone is a PBS kid. But looking at ways to engage 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, that it's not just at this end of the spectrum or this end of the spectrum. Building PBS Fort Wayne into a brand. I think we're going to look back and really see his tenure really set us up for a great future." Haines says what the future holds is what he'll miss most. "I know I will miss the creative aspect of it. Being able to answer questions that we're still asking now, I will miss, regarding what are these new platforms and social media. We're there, is that enough? It's not, what more can we do? Who are we reaching? Where did the audience go? Is this an either-or proposition? What happens to television itself? They're exciting questions. They're not all I don't know. They're all great reasons to get up in the morning. And wanting to be a fly on the wall when those questions get answered going forward should be a lot of fun," said Haines. PBS Fort Wayne debuts International Harvester documentary He wants to leave PBS Fort Wayne better than when he got there. And he knows he couldn't have done it without the Fort Wayne community. "For public media to be Positively Fort Wayne, there needs to positively be involvement off of the sidelines: volunteer, share ideas. We're here for you, we can be here for you because Fort Wayne's been there for us. The whole year next year will be one giant thank you card." That's because PBS Fort Wayne will be celebrating its 50th anniversary. Haines will take part is some events, but really, it's time for a new stream. "This has been a wonderful ride, with a tremendous staff, a great board, but learning how to now put this aside and work on the rest of the crafting of what are they going to remember you by, what are you going to remember you by? That's the new homework assignment. That's what I think retirement ends up becoming all about."