For Gary DePerry, it started as a summer job. In 1991, he was beginning a three-decade career as a P.E. teacher and coach in the Milwaukee Public School System and a colleague suggested he might enjoy working security at Brewers games. So, DePerry went to work patrolling the catwalks at County Stadium.

For Curt Wambach, it started as a good deed. In the early 2000s, as part of a fundraiser for his daughter Ashley’s gymnastics program, Wambach went to work pouring Miller Lites at the stadium then called Miller Park.

Decades later, DePerry and Wambach have become fixtures at what’s now called American Family Field. If you’ve bought a craft beer at the Local Brews stand, you might know Wambach, who runs the bar. And if you’ve walked the loge-level concourse, you might recognize DePerry, who supervises that level.

They are about to be very busy again.

Beginning with Friday afternoon’s “Re-Opening Day” game against the Rockies, the Brewers are back to operating at full capacity.

“It’s so different when you have 35,000-40,000 fans in there compared to 10,000 fans,” Wambach said. “I remember when the gates opened for Game 7 of the [2018 National League Championship Series] against the Dodgers, it was just a flood of people. It was the most unreal experience I have ever had.

“Unfortunately, we lost that day. But it was such a fantastic experience to see all of the people we know. You feel that especially this year. The biggest thing has been able to see the fans.”

Said DePerry: “Finally, you see things turning for the best. It feels good to be back around people.”

After hosting fans at 25 percent capacity to begin this season, then 50 percent, American Family Field is returning to full occupancy for the first time since the end of the 2019 season, before the coronavirus pandemic forced a shortened 2020 regular season in empty ballparks across America.

Here is some of what the Brewers have in store for Friday’s 3:10 p.m. CT game:

• $1 hot dogs all day for all fans, plus a magnet schedule reflecting the remaining 43 home and 44 road games scheduled from June 25 through the season’s end. The first 10,000 fans through the gates will get a free 1980s-style Brewers T-shirt.

• Cecil Cooper and Paul Molitor will throw ceremonial first pitches, and Cooper’s daughter, Tori, will perform the national anthem with the season’s first on-field color guard.

• A flyover of T-6A Texan planes out of the 47th Flying Training Wing at Laughlin (Texas) Air Force Base prior to the first pitch, weather permitting. Brookfield, Wis., native Sarah “Fuego” Fotsch, one of the active military members who received Zoom calls from Brewers players on Memorial Day, will be among the four persons piloting the aircrafts.

• With restrictions lifted, the Johnsonville Famous Racing Sausages will return to their normal racecourse, starting down the left-field line and ending as they pass the Brewers dugout.

Jobs have been on Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger’s mind a lot over the past year and a half. The Brewers furloughed an undisclosed portion of their front office personnel, implemented pay reductions for others, and informed part-time workers that there would be no work for them as long as there were no fans in the stands. Now, with the return of a full stadium and full staffing, the Brewers told local lawmakers in a letter this week that they anticipate the ballpark will create more than 3,000 local jobs for the 2021 baseball season. About 1,300 of those jobs are direct Brewers employees, including their seasonal staffers. Another 1,200 are subcontractors, including concession stand workers and aisle vendors. The rest include third-party outside partners, including law enforcement, healthcare workers, cleaning crews and parking attendants.

A huge swath of those employees were out of work last summer. The Brewers established a $1 million fund to assist those workers, which included contributions from Bob Uecker, Ryan Braun and other players, but it didn’t come close to making workers whole, Schlesinger said.

“It was brutal,” Schlesinger said. “It was the hardest summer I’ve ever experienced in my professional life, and I was working. So here I am, working, and there are people who couldn’t come to the ballpark. Fans and workers who were displaced. It was very stressful. It was an experience I hope we never have to go through again.”

The Brewers anticipate crowds north of 30,000 for all six games on the homestand against the Rockies and Cubs, and advanced sales suggest the numbers will rise through July and August as groups -- which normally account for approximately 400,000 tickets a year -- begin rolling in from around the state.

“When we began projecting ticket sales, we knew there was going to be a little bit of a delay factor,” Schlesinger said. “We know we have some catch-up to do here.”

With crowds coming, the Brewers and Delaware North, their concessionaire, are still hiring. Friday’s game presents a staffing challenge right off the bat, since the NBA’s Bucks begin the Eastern Conference Finals at home later that same day, and many employees work at both venues.

For many of them, working at the ballpark is a tradition.

“There’s stories of people who remember working at County Stadium when the Braves were here, and sometimes they’ve passed on to a second or third generation,” Schlesinger said. “It’s a legacy for a lot of people, instead of just a job. That helps with continuity, with friendly staff. It means people like coming to the ballpark. We have plenty of things to worry about, but I feel good about the gameday staff.”

Wambach said he takes pride in being a familiar face to so many season-ticket holders. When the Brewers moved him from the first-base side of the stadium to the third-base “Local Brews” bar as part of a massive renovation project in the 2016-17 offseason, he laughed when he heard from Brewers ticket executives that some customers were calling to ask where he’d gone.

In 2020, the bar was empty.

“I have pictures of how I came back to it,” Wambach said. “It was exactly the way I left it. I had sticky notes on some of the tappers where we were getting some fresh beers in. The only difference was there was an inch of dust on everything.

“Maybe two, two and a half weeks before this season, when we knew we were coming back, walking into that was surreal when I first walked around the corner to look at things.”

DePerry just retired from MPS in May after 31 years of teaching and coaching. He was one of the few security and facilities management officials who were called in to work in 2020, both when the Brewers were home and when they were away, since the stadium remained open for broadcasters to call games remotely.

The experience, he said, was “eerie,” but it had its perks. DePerry found himself gravitating to the new landing in left field, where he took a break from his miles of walking to bang out some push-ups.

“As an educator, I went through a lot of COVID protocols in that area of my life, and just like that, we had to be flexible. I think we handled it the same way here [as fans returned],” he said. “One thing I’ve noticed is we’re getting a lot more young people. Young children, teenagers. It’s great to see so many more kids come back to the ballpark with smiles on their faces.”