RETIRING…AFTER 41 YEARS WITH OCO Patrick Waite of Fulton has seen substantial change in human services over four-decade career By Ken Sturtz
W
hen Patrick Waite reflects on his career in human services he marvels at how different things were when he started his first job in the late 1970s. The way society viewed and cared for those in need, such as the homeless and developmentally disabled, was dramatically different. While many things in human services have changed for the better since then, much remains to be done, he said. Waite retired in June from Oswego County Opportunities as deputy executive director after 41 years with the organization. He isn’t walking away from helping people, but he is planning to take a break. So, what kept him with the same agency for four decades? “I just always embraced OCO’s mission as an anti-poverty agency and I always had a strong heart for working with people with disabilities,” he said. “That kept me going.” Over the years he had opportunities to work for other human service agencies, but OCO constantly offered him new opportunities and challenges so the work never got old. But when Waite moved to the area for his first job it wasn’t with OCO. He grew up in Ilion, near Utica, and considered going into special education, but changed his mind and studied human services. After college he moved to Oswego County and took a job working with adults with developmental disabilities. A few years
later, in 1981, OCO hired him for a newly created caseworker position dealing with developmentally disabled adults in the agency’s residential program. At the time OCO’s residential program for developmentally disabled adults was tiny, consisting of just four community residences, known to the public as group homes. “Back in the day when someone was born with a developmental disability, often the doctor would say just put them in an institution and go on with your life and forget about them,” Waite said. “A lot of families did.” But things were changing by the late 1970s and early 1980s. State facilities had long been used to warehouse children and adults with developmental disabilities, resulting in horrific cases of abuse and neglect.
82 OSWEGO COUNTY BUSINESS OCTOBER / NOVEMBER 2022
After the exposure of the conditions at the notorious Willowbrook State School in New York City, New York state started moving residents out of institutions.
