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In 2013, the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association (WHNA) submitted an application for Community Preservation Act (CPA) funding to preserve Safford Park, a neighborhood park. WHNA President Walter Hubley explains the process that brought this project to life with strong community engagement.
Learn more about this CPA project on the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association website.
QUINCY ‒ With municipal elections still half a year away, the race for Ward 3's city council seat has already seen action…
Though new to electoral politics, Hubley is known in the community as co-founder of the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association and PorchFest Quincy, the annual musical event he created with Cain eight years ago. He also served a two-year stint as headmaster at The Woodward School for girls, where his daughter graduated.
"I've been really successful at building a strong community, identity and community feel," Hubley said of his efforts in his neighborhood. "I just want to bring that same type of advocacy to the rest Ward 3."
Walter Hubley, of 44 Marion St., announces his candidacy for Ward 3 city councillor.
In his announcement, Hubley described himself as a dedicated community leader who is known for his work strengthening Quincy’s neighborhoods. He said he brings a vision of community building, responsive and transparent government, and a voice for responsible development to his campaign.
“It’s an exciting time to live in Quincy. Our city is growing fast, and Ward 3 needs a councillor who listens, responds, acts with integrity, and puts residents first,” said Hubley. “I’m running to help build a stronger community, ensure that government is responsive, and advocate for responsible development that respects our city’s character while meeting our future housing needs. We need a balanced approach to minimize impacts on traffic and other quality of life factors.”
Hubley works at The Community Builders, where he focuses on security and technology design for affordable housing across 18 states in the U.S., bringing direct experience in sustainable community development to his candidacy.
“At the Community Builders, we focus on some of the more economically challenged areas of the country and create safe communities where all people can thrive,” Hubley said. “My role is to design and implement security systems that provide a safe living environment and technology solutions to help bridge the digital divide in underserved communities.”
A Quincy native, Hubley described his volunteer work as “extensive.” Hubley is co-founder of PorchFest Quincy, which he led for the past eight years, an annual event celebrating local musicians. He also co-founded and led the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association for the past 14 years, championing local concerns and fostering neighborhood pride through an organization known for its popular “Saturdays in the Park” concert series.
“Music is powerful,” Hubley said, “because people who may have little in common otherwise can find something in common through the shared experience of music.
“When we are more connected as a community, our challenges seem a lot smaller, and our celebrations get a lot louder,” Hubley continued. “Strong neighborhoods make us a stronger city, and prepare us to meet the challenges and opportunities of a rapidly changing city.”
Hubley also served on the board of the Quincy Community Action Programs (QCAP) for five years, a leading nonprofit dedicated to reducing poverty and promoting self-sufficiency through housing support, early childhood education, economic empowerment, and basic needs assistance. More recently, he served as president of the Rotary Club of Quincy, supporting many local causes and an international service project with Friends of Thai Daughters, a nonprofit that protects children at risk of human trafficking in Northern Thailand.
A proud product of the Quincy Public Schools, Hubley holds a Bachelor of Science degree in business administration, as well as certificates in leadership and management from The Thayer Leadership Development Group at West Point and MIT’s Sloan School of Management, equipping him with a strong foundation in leadership and strategic planning.
Hubley is the adopted son of the late Edgar and Ruth Hubley and lives in his family home on Wollaston Hill with his wife, Kathryn, where they raised their daughter, Victoria, and their son, Nathan. Following in his parents’ footsteps, Walter and Kathryn became foster parents during the COVID-19 pandemic, opening their home to children in need. More recently, Walter and Kathryn have served as host parents for international students from Hong Kong, Mainland China, Vietnam, and Costa Rica, reflecting their commitment to education and the global community.
For more information about Walter Hubley’s campaign, please visit walterhubley.org. He can also be reached by email at whubley@gmail.com.
You can find the Quincy Sun article online here.
QUINCY ‒ This weekend, song and dance will again fill three Quincy neighborhoods as hundreds of musicians flock to the eighth annual PorchFest Quincy celebration. As attendees walk from porch to porch, drinking in the tunes of an almost endless array of local bands, food and craft beers will be available at designated locations.
Photo credit: Greg Derr/The Patriot Ledger
"When you spend 31 years searching for someone that becomes part of your identity.”
Walter Hubley spent three decades searching for his birth family and trying to understand his heritage.
Business psychologist and executive coach Hazel Showell explores how more often than not what you’re looking for is what you’ll find. In this episode, you’ll hear the secret to accepting whatever it is that you find.
Quincy Rotary Club President Walter Hubley, and board member Damion Outar, the new Community Liaison for the City of Quincy, discuss the club's 100th anniversary this year, the history and mission of Rotary, and past and current events and fundraisers.
He’s the president of the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association.
NAME: Walter Hubley
AGE: 49
HOMETOWN: Quincy
IN THE NEWS: As the president of the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association, which organizes community events in Quincy.
NOW YOU KNOW: He taught himself computer programming as a teenager.
HIS STORY: Walter Hubley’s resume has got to be one of the most diverse around.
He’s worked in software, television, education and housing. He’s a community organizer and has volunteered in the foster care system. He’s a father of two. And underscoring it all, he’s got a motivation to build local community.
“When we’re stronger as a community, our challenges seem a little smaller and our celebrations get a little louder,” Hubley said. “That’s how I can help.”
Locals might know Hubley, a lifelong Quincy resident, as the president of the Wollaston Hill Neighborhood Association. The group oversaw the 2014 renovation of Safford Park, and organizes community events, such as Quincy Porchfest and Saturdays in the Park.
Hubley started the neighborhood association in 2011 with his wife, Kathryn, who’s now a member of the Quincy School Committee. He said the organization was built from the ground up and with no funding — he and his family just went door-to-door introducing themselves.
Others might know Hubley from the two years he spent as the head of The Woodward School, a private all-girls school in Quincy Center. Hubley oversaw the school’s restoration of its 18th-century classroom building and described his time at Woodward was “incredibly rewarding.”
But Hubley had never intended to work in education. Before he was asked to apply for Woodward’s top job, he worked in cable television and at a number of software startups.
Working in tech came naturally for Hubley, who’s had an interest in computer programming since he was a kid and saw the 1983 sci-fi thriller “WarGames.” He was a young teenager when he decided to sell his comic book collection and use the money to buy a computer, He went on to build computer games for himself and his friends.
Hubley now works at a Boston-based affordable housing developer called The Community Builders, that manages properties across the East Coast. He said his motivation for joining the nonprofit came from seeing inequity around him and wanting to make a change.
“If you see all the different developments that are happening in and around Quincy, they’re mainly of a higher market rate,” Hubley said. “Housing is getting less and less affordable.”
At The Community Builders, Hubley has returned to working in tech. He builds security systems and other networks that give residents access to technology such as computer labs.
Hubley is also on the board of Quincy Community Action Programs, an organization that supports local low-income families, and was a volunteer case reviewer for the state’s foster care system. Hubley is a foster parent and child himself, having been adopted by parents who took in dozens of kids in their lifetimes.
Quincy Porchfest, which started in Hubley’s dining room over a conversation with Ward 3 City Councilor Ian Cain, is an event that’s built on Hubley’s desire to build community.
The annual outdoor music festival drew more than a hundred artists to Quincy this year at more than 50 homes across the city, and Hubley said it’s gotten bigger every year since its founding four years ago.
“Music is powerful because the love for music crosses all cultures and demographics,” he said. “People who have little in common otherwise can find something in common though music.”
Link to Patriot Ledger here.
Liz Roney - the Leadership Coaching Group Pordcast
The Leadership Coaching Group is powered by a team with complementary outlooks on life and leadership, delivering a discerning coaching collaboration approach.
Liz Roney and her business partner Richard Rieckenberg visited The Woodward School in 2016 and engaged students in a conversation about leadership and creating their own personal mission statement. I later appeared as a guest on The Leadership Coaching Group podcast in June of 2018, discussing servant leadership and breaking away from the scarcity mindset.
Liz Roney and her business partner Richard Rieckenberg at The Woodward School.
Liz Roney at The Woodward School.
Burnt Cars in Merrymount, Quincy. Photo Credit: Gary Higgins/Patriot Ledger
By Audrey Cooney
QUINCY — The third annual Porchfest Quincy brought the beat of rock, pop, folk and Celtic tunes to the city’s streets on Saturday.
“It’s just completely exceeded our expectations,” said Walter Hubley, one of the co-founders of PorchFest Quincy, along with his friend, City Councilor Ian Cain.
Three years ago, inspired by the long-running Somerville Porchfest, Cain and Hubley decided to bring a similar event to their home city. Local homeowners volunteered their porches, driveways and front yards for musicians who performed free concerts throughout the day.
Performances were clustered within a few blocks in four different neighborhoods - Wollaston Hill, Wollaston Beach, Squantum and Merrymount - where music reverberated around the otherwise quiet streets.
Read the entire story here.
By SCOTT JACKSON
The Woodward School plans to renovate and expand its current facility in Quincy Center, which would allow the school to increase its enrollment in the future.
The private school for girls began operating in 1894 in a six-room schoolhouse at the corner of Hancock and Greenleaf Streets. The original building was then expanded over the next two decades, bringing the school to its current size.
Walter Hubley, who has served as the school’s headmaster since July 2016, said the plan is to complete the renovation and expansion of the building by the fall of 2019 – in time for Woodward School’s 125th anniversary. “We’re hoping to have all of this done and to conclude to coincide with our 125th school year anniversary, which will be the 2019-2020 school year starting in September of 2019,” Hubley said.
Read the full Quincy Sun article here.
Quincy Sun Photo/Robert Bosworth
QUINCY, MASS. – The Woodward School, a 122-year-old independent college preparatory school for girls in the heart of Quincy Center, recognized this election season with an inspiring, dramatic reinterpretation of Susan B. Anthony’s historic speech, after her arrest for casting an illegal vote in the presidential election of 1872. Susan B. Anthony was a suffragist, Women’s Rights Campaigner, Temperance Worker, Labor Activist, Educational Reformer, and Abolitionist. For her act of voting, Anthony was tried and fined $100, which she refused to pay.
Students and faculty were in attendance, as students Zoe Strassel (Quincy), Fiona Ozyurt-Powers (Dedham), and Hailey Peckham (Canton) served as readers, while students Angel Okeibunor (Quincy), Ronia Peterson (Randolph), and Jordan Cedrone (Braintree) served as movers creating tableaus, in this dramatic reinterpretation.
“We the people of the United States…we the whole people… not to the half of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well as men… are women not persons? I hardly believe any of our opponents will have the hardihood to say they are not.”
“She campaigned all across the country declaring Men their rights, and nothing more; women, their rights, and nothing less,” recited the students.
Following the dramatic read, recently appointed Head of School Walter Hubley addressed the students, “By a show of hands, is the environment important to you? Are human rights important to you? Are animal rights important to you? Is the future of education important to you…” The litany of questions was responded to with overwhelming agreement from students. Hubley then asked, “By a show of hands, do you feel government represents your values?”, and almost every hand stayed down.
Hubley then requested a small group of students to stand apart from their fellow students and stated, “I do not have the solutions to all these concerns, but I do have an answer to why you may not feel government represents your values. This small group of your classmates beside me represents the 38.9% of 18-24 year-old citizens who will exercise their right to vote in this election.” Hubley continued, “Fewer than half of that small group (15.9%) will vote in local city elections, where citizens receive most of their services from government.”
“The good news is, the future has not happened yet, and what’s past is not prologue. It is incumbent upon you to honor Susan B. Anthony’s fight and change what happens next. Ms. Anthony’s call to action is a call to vote” Hubley stated.
Civic engagement is a centerpiece of Woodward’s mission of leadership. The Woodward School was teaching young women about public activism and civics 30 years before women had the right to vote.