Rettie, Dwight Fay, 1930-

Dwight Fay Rettie, the oldest son of Lois Chloey Morris and James Cardno Rettie, was born March 27, 1930 in New Haven, Connecticut. Rettie spent his early years growing up in Portland, Oregon, Juneau, Alaska, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The family moves stemmed from James C. Rettie's employment with the Natural Resources Planning Board in the late 1930s and 1940s.

Rettie attended Grant High School in Portland, Oregon and later graduated from Haverford School in Pennsylvania, class of 1948. After high school, he began working summers for the U.S. Forest Service as a blister rust control crewman, lookout and smokechaser. In fall of 1948, Rettie entered Yale University's pre-med program only to switch to political science which better suited his public service ambitions. He graduated with honors in 1952. That fall, Rettie was drafted into the army. He had reached the rank of Staff Sergeant when he was discharged in 1954. Rettie then entered Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a degree in Political Science (Public Administration). His thesis was titled "National Forest Timber Sale Policy, a Study of the Disposal of Federally Owned Resources Severable from Land."

Upon graduation in 1955, Rettie moved to Washington, D.C. to take a job with the Treasury Department as a management intern for the Bureau of Public Debt. In March, 1957, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gave Rettie a job in the Management Improvement Office. After several months, BLM director Edward Woozley asked Rettie to temporarily serve as the Bureau's Information Officer. This temporary move lasted for the next five years, with Rettie as Chief Public Affairs Officer. In 1963, Rettie was moved to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and promoted to head the Office of Information and Education. Serving as Assistant to the Commissioner (of Public Affairs) of Fish and Wildlife, he worked on projects associated with President John F. Kennedy's special interest in conservation as outlined in a message to Congress.

Following Kennedy's assassination, Rettie was asked to serve on the Poverty Program Task Force, headed by Directer of the Peace Corps, R. Sargent Shriver. When this assignment was completed, he returned to the Department of Interior with a legislative blueprint for the new Job Corps, which was associated with President Johnson's "War on Poverty" program. Later, he was promoted to Staff Assistant to Under Secretary John Carver.

Working for Carver, Rettie wrote speeches and analyzed policies. In October, 1964, he enrolled in a special management training course wrote speeches and analyzed policies. In October, 1964, he enrolled in a special management training course sponsored by the Department of Defense. The course was an outgrowth of a new planning, programming and budgeting system (PPBS) designed by Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara. President Johnson had declared that this system was to be implemented government-wide by the following year and Rettie helped with this implementation within the Department of Interior.

After the completion of the first budget cycle, Rettie accepted a transfer and promotion to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) where he filled the post of Director of Open Space Land Programs. The programs were a collection of grants to cities and local governments to buy and develop parks and open spaces within urban areas. While at HUD, Rettie also served as the Department's representative to the Council on Historic Preservation.

In September of 1971, Rettie resigned from federal service to accept a job as Executive Director for the National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA), anon-profit organization concerned with the parks and recreation movement. Here, Rettie attempted to strengthen the NRPA's lobbying power in Washington, D.C. and spent much time traveling and making speeches to garner NRPA support.

Rettie was offered a job in the National Park Service (NPS) by Director Russell E. Dickinson in September, 1975. He accepted the offer to guide the development of the newly-formed Urban National Parks. Rettie developed the master plan for Gateway National Recreation Area in New York and New Jersey. The largest unit of the NPS, Gateway was a complex project involving urban problems new to the field of recreation. In 1978, Rettie was named Deputy Chief of Park Planning and Environmental Quality for the NPS. He was promoted to Chief of the Office for Management Policy in 1981.

Dwight Rettie retired from the NPS in 1986. Living in Arlington, Virginia, he has been active in community affairs. For six years Rettie served on the Arlington County Public Utilities Commission, primarily involved with the construction of a cable television ordinance. He has also served on the governing board of the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, a state agency governing 8,000 acres of park land.

From the guide to the Dwight Fay Rettie papers, 1950-1995, 1916-2008, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)