In her 30 years at West Marin Senior Services, Susan Deixler made a lot of people happy. They made her happy in return. “It was terrific,” she said. “It was a wonderful opportunity to work with people I just adore. I learned something every day, and hopefully I did some good. It’s such a pleasure to help people.” On Tuesday, the Marin County Board of Supervisors acknowledged her recent retirement and honored her contributions at the nonprofit. She began as a volunteer before serving for 20 years as a senior case manager. Ms. Deixler helped seniors in any way she could—connecting them with medical care, arranging rides to the grocery store, or just listening to whatever they had to say. “She had a real capacity to talk to people, to diffuse their fears and get through to them,” said Skip Schwartz, the agency’s executive director. “She has a lot to teach us about commitment and compassion.” Ms. Deixler is perhaps best known for establishing the senior swim program at Heart’s Desire Beach on Tomales Bay, a program that has been running with the help of devoted volunteers for 18 years. It began after she conducted a standard intake interview with a new client and asked if there was anything else she needed. The client, an avid swimmer, said she would love to get back into the water. She couldn’t drive anymore, and she couldn’t walk unassisted. “She asked if I would set up a swim program, and so I did,” Ms. Deixler said. “I went straight back to the office and called Tomales Bay State Park.” On the client’s first swim, Ms. Deixler and a volunteer walked the woman into the water. “We were each on one side of her, and we walked her across the sand,” she recalled. “As soon as she was waist deep, she just jumped right in and swam away like a dolphin.” Ms. Deixler was reluctant to retire, but at 79 years old, she’s contending with the vicissitudes of aging herself. A big part of her job was persuading fiercely independent seniors to accept support, a lesson she has taken to heart. “I’ve learned to be able to grow old gracefully and not fight it,” she said. “Just go with the flow.”