Media Release

December 8, 2004

Media Contacts:

Rosann Doran                                                 

Public Information Officer                    

Opportunity knocks: Ron Marcucci hangs it up after 25 years

When opportunity knocks, Ron Marcucci pays attention. So, after 25 years with the City and County of Broomfield, he has announced his retirement. But he’s not going home to sit in a rocking chair.

Marcucci, 57, Broomfield’s Geographic Information Systems (GIS) manager until January 4, has accepted a position as business manager with Lionsgate Center in Lafayette.

For the Missouri native who grew up in Texas and came to Colorado after a stint in the military service, it’s not the first time he has answered that knock.

As he tells the story, “I was working as an architectural designer for a local home builder in the late 1970s when I met Laurel Shimpfky, a resident of Broomfield since 1956. Her mother taught school in Brighton and her father taught band at Broomfield High and Emerald Elementary. We were married on May 5, 1979.” The couple set up house in Broomfield.

Marcucci recalls that later that year the market started going soft on new housing, so he began a job search, hoping to avert “the plunge.” After seeing an ad in the Broomfield Enterprise – pointed out to him by his wife – he decided to apply for a mapping position in the Engineering Division at the city. Another one of those knocks came, and thus began 25 years with Broomfield beginning Dec. 17, 1979.

Marcucci reminisces about that first day and not knowing anyone. The next day, along came Paul Derda, then the director of Parks and Recreation, who retired from the city in 2001.

According to Marcucci, “Paul turned me around and upstairs we went. He introduced me to Lucy Brown (then the City Clerk) and George DiCiero, city manager.” Their welcome and that of others he met during the day were what made him think “this would be an okay place to work.”

Marcucci remembers that one of his first assignments came from Di Ciero. It would use his graphic design skills: he was to design a new city logo. According to Di Ciero’s instructions, the city was forward-looking and its symbol needed to reflect that. So, Marcucci set to thinking about what could be done and considered the unique qualities about Broomfield. He was, after all, in the mapping field, so it occurred to him that Broomfield was unusual because it was geographically located in three counties, “with a prominent backdrop of Longs peak to the west.”

The result was a triangular shape in the form of an inverted ribbon forming a triangle representing the three counties, and the mountain peaks became the outer boundary. Marcucci then created a stylized “B” in the core of the logo to represent Broomfield and its citizens. He adds, “I quickly came to realize how important citizens are in Broomfield’s culture.” Now, he points out, collaboration with citizens is formalized in the Broomfield mission statement.

When asked how things have changed in the mapping processes, Marcucci says that in the “olden days” Rapideograph ink pens were used on vellum (translucent paper) and mylar (translucent plastic sheets) to draw engineering construction plans and maps. As the years went on, the department became computerized, adding Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to the operation – a much better situation as far as Marcucci is concerned.

In 1985, as GIS coordinator, Marcucci hired additional personnel. GIS was becoming an increasingly useful tool to display spreadsheet and database information in a visual format. “Kind of ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ situation,” he says. Marcucci was promoted to GIS Manager in 2000, supervising a staff of 8 professionals and serving the entire city organization. The group separated from the Engineering Division to create a new GIS Division. “After that, GIS was ready to tackle the challenges of county-hood in 2001,” Marcucci says.

Again Di Ciero asked Marcucci to re-design the logo for the now City and County of Broomfield. This time, it had to reflect the new era beginning in 2001 with the advent of the combined city and county government. “The only changes needed were to redefine the triangle to represent our city-county commitment to health, safety, and welfare and then graphically show how we had combined all of our four county areas into one community. We did that by simply adding a circle around the previous logo to reflect our unity,” Marcucci explains.

According to Marcucci, high spots during his career have included the people he has worked with. “Broomfield manages to get really good people,” he says. In particular, he points to City and County Manager George Di Ciero as a real asset. “There’s just a great feeling of consistency when the top guy is stable.” Di Ciero has been manager for over 35 years. “He’s demanding, but he always makes you feel like you are really contributing. I look back on some late nights, and tweaking things for George to get them exactly right. You have to respect someone with that level of commitment,” Marcucci says.

One special memory Marcucci mentions was when Di Ciero was thinking about moving into Marcucci’s neighborhood. “He called and asked a lot about what the neighborhood was like and if we liked it, because he was thinking of building there,” Marcucci recalls. Now, Di Ciero is a neighbor-down-the-street. “I’ll never forget that,” Marcucci says. “Here I was at a mid level in the organization, and here was the city manager asking me what I thought. Then I realized. He’s really a regular guy with a big job to do.”

Now, six grown children, five grandchildren, and 25 years later, Marcucci says he is ready to retire and move on to other endeavors. Always the diplomat, he muses, “I have enjoyed and am extremely proud to have been associated with such talented and dedicated Broomfield employees, as well as serving the citizen’s of this great community.”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be around,” he concludes. No kidding. He’s volunteered to help on the committee to determine the uses for the Brunner Farmhouse.