When Joe Mysak was fired as the editor of the Bond Buyer in 1994, the staff stood on their desks and applauded as he left the building.

He appreciated the homage to the scene in Dead Poets Society, a film which had come out a few years earlier.

It seemed a fitting tribute given all the people he mentored over those years.

Bond Buyer management didn’t appreciate what they had. No reason for the sacking was given. Joe later said: “Everyone knew a grave injustice had been committed.”

Even at the time, Joe was considered among the most knowledgeable and influential voices on municipal finance.

He literally wrote the book on the topic, twice. There was “Handbook for Muni-Bond Issuers” and “Encyclopedia of Municipal Bonds: A Reference Guide to Market Events, Structures, Dynamics, and Investment Knowledge.”

After leaving the newspaper, Joe spent five years working with Jim Grant on a publication.

In 1999, then Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief Matt Winkler hired him to write a column about state and local finance. Later on, I tapped him to launch a Bloomberg newsletter about munis.

Joe recently announced his plans to retire at the end of June.

Over lunch at Harry’s at Hanover Square, Joe told me he realized that after more than four decades there was “nothing left in the tank.” It was time to move on.

Joe is, I believe, only the second person to officially retire from Bloomberg News.

Plenty of Bloomberg journalists have quit and plenty more have been fired. A number have even died. But only one other, Dave Wilson, managed to hang on long enough to leave on his own terms.

It speaks both to Joe’s ability as a journalist, as well as his tenacity.

I worked with Joe directly for two extended stretches. When he was first hired, I was the New York Bureau Chief. Later, he joined a group that I managed which was creating newsletters.

It says something that Joe’s newsletter was the most financially successful of two dozen Bloomberg created.

Joe reported to me, but I didn’t manage him because you don’t manage people like Joe.

You leave them alone and let them do what they do so well. It’s something that is increasingly hard to find in a modern world driven by clicks and metrics.

Joe looks at the world through the lens of municipal finance. Where you and I see a bridge or highway or stadium, he sees the bond sale behind the project and what it cost taxpayers.

He excels at finding the tidbit that tells a tale. Like the details buried in a $14 million offering of Hawaiian housing bonds or a $60 million deal to improve the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument in Kearney, Nebraska. He understands it is often the small things that make the big stories.

He has “the ability to find stories and create stories out of things that seemingly had no story,” said former portfolio manager, longtime muni observer and Forbes.com columnist Barnet Sherman.

Joe plans to spend some of his retirement going through papers left to the New York Public Library by the late writer Tom Wolfe, author of Bonfire of the Vanities. He and Wolfe became friends after Joe provided feedback for the manuscript.

He is sure there are small gems of insight buried in the stacks.