Roby Whitehouse is a driven, passionate, native Cape Codder who wants to leave the world a better place for others, especially for her grandchild. She has worked for the town of Yarmouth for 23 years, beginning her career in finance and accounting. Her years as an administrator for the cemetery, grounds, and highway departments encompassed a variety of responsibilities that among others included budgeting, payroll and customer service.
She’s enjoyed learning the inner workings of town operations/government and has continued to seek growth opportunities that led her to become waste management superintendent eight years ago. She jumped in with both feet to learn all that she could and implemented changes that would benefit the town and its community. Her hard work has created an efficient and well-oiled operation that improved services, always with an eye on the budget. Recently Roby’s efforts were rewarded through a promotion to Asst. DPW Director. Just listening to the list of departments she now oversees was daunting, yet she seems to thrive on it.
Roby carries all she knows into her job. She recognizes the importance of recycling with a goal to make it more efficient based upon markets, considering costs, and providing education. For example when newspaper showed an increase in value, she arranged for it to be collected separately from other paper. She keeps an eye on water quality and monitors the rails to be sure the area is kept clean when waste is taken off Cape by train.
Residing in a community with a diverse, older population as well as with families overloaded with multiple jobs and responsibilities it can be hard to get their attention. She believes to be successful with sustainability in a community, we need everyone to be involved. How to connect with them continues to a focus.
Roby explained growing up on Cape Cod that her family didn’t recycle and they used a landfill for their waste. Her upbringing and experiences made her want to make positive changes. She does this through her job on a daily basis that has gotten her involved in town government. An active member in Rotary she serves as president elect and was recently recognized as Rotarian of the Year for her club in Yarmouth.
Roby has attended the CARE summits and participated in a working group. She has done so because it is local, grassroots, and she believes in collaboration and homegrown local organizations. She likes that it’s not only informative but has brought a diverse group of people together to work towards solutions collectively.
She has taken advantage of the Take Care Cape Cod campaign to help with some of the communication challenges “because the messages are brightly colored, funny, drawing your attention”. She believes that the images speak in any language and even without words they get the point across, encouraging other towns to use them too. Take Care messages may be found in Yarmouth at the transfer station and will soon be installed at many of Yarmouth beaches.
