Bob DeRubeis To Retire After Three Decades At Newton City Hall

NEWTON, MA —Bob DeRubeis, Newton Parks, Recreation and Culture commissioner, will retire when he turns 65 next February, the city announced. He has worked for the city for 32 years.

Under his leadership, the city reconstructed the Highlands Playground and restored Farlow Park. He also grew programming for special needs residents so that it has become a model for not just the Commonwealth but for the country, according to the mayor.

DeRubeis grew up in the city and played Little League in West Newton and then left field for the Newton North Tigers baseball team with the class of 1973. In the summer, he worked at the camp at the Lincoln-Eliot School playground.

He eventually graduated from Newton North and Boston State College with a degree in education. He worked in Methuen as a teacher and a coach and thought that's where he would always be.

Then he got a phone call that changed his life - or brought him home.

It was the late 1980s and then Parks and Recreation Commissioner Russ Halloran offered him a full-time job. He left his teaching job and moved over to Newton City Hall. He moved from supervisor to deputy commissioner and then in 2010, he became commissioner of parks and recreation. He's worked for five Newton mayors, and also dabbled as director of human resources and chief budget officer. And during all of this, he earned a masters degree from Boston University, attended law school and passed the bar exam.

Mayor Ruthanne Fuller praised his leadership, humanity, management skills, good nature and deep love of Newton in a memo to the City Council, Wednesday.

"Bob has a hard job and he does it beautifully. He leads a department with a wide range of duties, many of which are public facing. His department, for example, does snow plowing around schools and public buildings and field maintenance, runs summer camps and recreation programs and takes care of our trees, operates farmers’ markets and oversees Gath Pool and Crystal Lake. At every turn, Bob proves himself to be a leader who has the respect and affection of his employees and other City and School department heads, gets things done well, and gives everyone respect so residents and City Councilors on both sides of an issue are generally satisfied," she wrote.

“I never thought I’d be doing this, but things fell into place. This has become my life, this is my family. I’ll miss the people here,” DeRubis said in a statement.