While serving as Atlanta Water Commissioner, Remedios del Rosario “had insight for spotting talent,’ said Eddie Roberts, who retired as director of water distribution for the Department of Watershed Management in 2013. “She knew your strengths and weaknesses, and she would encourage you to improve.”
Roberts said he was an area supervisor when del Rosario became the water commissioner in 1993.
When she told him he would make a good manager, he divulged that he had dropped out of college. As encouragement, she sent him a book about successful people who didn’t finish college. She also opened doors into management for women and minorities, he said.
“If you had the ability, she wanted you to have the opportunity,” Roberts said. “She was a great mentor. She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.”
Del Rosario died of cancer on March 13 in Orlando, Fla. She was 73. Her funeral was March 20 at A Community Funeral Home & Sunset Cremations in Orlando. A memorial service will be held later in Atlanta.
She was born on April 11, 1941, in Surigao City, Philippines, the ninth of 12 children.
Her grandfather was governor of the Surigao province. Her father, Ramon Kaimo, was mayor of Surigao City for 16 years. Her uncle, Antonio Kaimo, was director of the Philippines Water Works Association.
“We come from a political family. We were also a very competitive family academically,” said her sister, Teresita Almeda of Tampa, Fla. “She was into studying and never stopped learning.”
At age 15, del Rosario entered Far Eastern University in Manila, and earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1964.
She met her future husband, Rene del Rosario, there. He taught her physics laboratory and integrated calculus. “She was one of the best students I had in physics laboratory,” he said. When she wasn’t interested in him because she thought he was too skinny, “I started body building. By the time she took my math class three years later, I was no longer skin and bones.”
After graduating, she started teaching chemistry lab at her alma mater. She and Rene married in 1967. Seven years later, they moved to Detroit, where she started as a junior chemist and by 1989 worked her way up to assistant director of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department. She earned a master’s degree in public administration at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 1991.
Then Atlanta came calling and she headed south to take the water commissioner post for a nine-year tenure during which the system was privatized, then returned to city control and restructured as part of the Department of Watershed Management in 2002.
“Remy did a good job when she was water commissioner,” said Clair Muller, who served on the Atlanta City Council from 1990 to 2009. “She was pleasant, easy to work with and had a great sense of humor. She was dedicated to the water department and worked well with all of our constituents. She was well-liked in the community.”
To relax, del Rosario loved telling jokes, karaoke, and scrapbooking. She was a whiz at Scrabble. She also was active in the Filipino-American Association of Greater Atlanta and sang with Kayumanggi, a Filipino choral group, said friend Gloria Sabiniano of Alpharetta.
“We’d go to parties and dance and sing karaoke. She was a good singer,” Sabiniano said. “She’d come to my house and we’d put on life jackets and get in the pool. We couldn’t swim, but we had fun to relieve the tension from work. She was a funny, friendly and very strong woman.”
Melinda Langston, who was a water utility manager during del Rosario’s tenure, said, “She definitely will be remembered as a woman of integrity. She stood up to political pressures to do what she felt was right for the city.”
The city had signed a 20-year contract in 1998 with United Water to run the utility. United Water later requested an additional $80 million to operate the system. Del Rosario refused to sign off on the increase.
Two years after retiring in 2002, she moved to Orlando and focused on traveling and family. “She worked hard during her career, but she always enjoyed her life,” said her daughter Kristine del Rosario of Orlando.
In addition to her husband, daughter and sister Teresita, del Rosario is survived by her sons Gerald del Rosario of Centreville, Va., and Ronald del Rosario of Germantown, Md.; sister Milagros Altrecha of Manila; brothers Antonio Kaimo and Reynaldo Kaimo of Manila, Roberto Kaimo of South Plainfield, N.J., Alfredo Kaimo of Simi Valley, Calif.; and three grandchildren.
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