Robert P. DeVecchi, Humanitarian Leader
Through his work with the International Rescue Committee, which spanned three decades, Robert P. DeVecchi was credited with helping to save the lives of millions of refugees who fled foreign conflicts. Mr. DeVecchi, who held several leadership roles with the I.R.C. and was recognized with a number of humanitarian awards, died on Oct. 26 at his home in Southport, Conn. He was 85. A cause of death was not provided.
Mr. DeVecchi joined the I.R.C. in May of 1975, and in a 2005 interview with The East Hampton Star, he recalled thinking that he was “going from unreality to reality . . . going through the looking glass.” The ensuing months saw Mr. DeVecchi coordinating the I.R.C.’s Indochinese Refugee Resettlement Program, then the largest refugee resettlement effort in United States history. He launched humanitarian efforts in 28 countries, including Rwanda, Iraq, Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
Mr. DeVecchi rose through the organization’s ranks, becoming its program director in 1980, its executive director in 1985, and its president and chief executive officer in 1993. He would hold that position until 1997, when he was elected president emeritus of the I.R.C.
Mr. DeVecchi retired that year to East Hampton with his wife, Betsy Stettinius Trippe, who was a third-generation East Hampton resident before her death in 2009. They lived in a carriage house on Dunemere Lane that once belonged to her grandparents.
He was born on Oct. 6, 1930, in New York City, and attended the Buckley School in Lawrenceville and the Collegiate School in New York City. He graduated from Yale University in 1952, served two years in the Air Force, stationed in Europe, and returned to the states to attend Harvard University, where he completed his master’s degree in business administration in 1956.
Prior to joining the I.R.C., Mr. DeVecchi, who was fluent in French and had a working knowledge of Italian and Polish, was a foreign service officer for the U.S. Department of State. He served in places ranging from Washington, D.C., to NATO headquarters in Paris to U.S. embassies in Warsaw and Rome. When he joined the I.R.C. in 1975, he and his first wife, Florence Lincoln Sloan, had just been divorced. He told The Star in 2005 that “something told me that this was the challenge I was looking for.”
Mr. DeVecchi was awarded the Peacemakers Award of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, D.C., in 1996 and received the I.R.C.’s Freedom Award in 1998. In 2005, Yale University granted him an honorary doctorate of humane letters, with a proclamation that read, “Undaunted by the vast enterprise of assisting those displaced by war, famine, and flood, you have retained an optimism of the possible.”
He was a longtime member and director emeritus of Refugees International and was a member of the FilmAid Advisory Council. He also counted among his memberships the Maidstone Club, St. Anthony’s Hall, the Century Club, the Yale Club, and the Pequot Yacht Club.
Mr. DeVecchi is survived by a sister, Margaret Gabriel of Washington, D.C.; two daughters, Margaret Lincoln DeVecchi of Northampton, Mass., and Angela DeVecchi of Watertown, Mass.; four stepchildren, William Douglass of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., William Duke of New York City, Terry Marsh of Bremen, Me., and John Duke of Providence, R.I.; and 13 grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at St. James Church at 865 Madison Avenue in Manhattan on Dec. 4 at 11 a.m., with a reception to follow at the Union Club. Memorial donations have been suggested to the I.R.C., which can be contacted at 855-9RESCUE or P.O. Box 6068, Albert Lea, Minn. 56007-9847.