OneEighty leader steps down after 40 years, Robles to take over

Holmes County families who reach for OneEighty in the middle of a domestic-violence crisis, a substance-use emergency or a housing breakdown will be watching this transition closely. Bobbi Douglas is stepping down after nearly 44 years with the agency, and Fredy Robles is set to take over a nonprofit that has become a key part of the safety net in Wayne and Holmes counties.

OneEighty announced Douglas’s retirement on Dec. 10, 2025, and said she is scheduled to retire in the summer of 2026. The agency has scheduled a public retirement recognition for June 24, a sign that the handoff will be more than ceremonial. For local residents, the central question is whether the services that matter most in a crisis will stay steady: 24-hour hotlines, residential treatment, outpatient counseling, medication-assisted treatment, peer support, crisis intervention, family counseling and recovery housing.

Douglas’s career tracked the organization’s growth from a small local effort into a broad behavioral-health provider. OneEighty traces its roots to 1974, when Doug Pomeroy founded Wayne County Council on Alcoholism Services. Every Woman’s House began in 1978 as an informal effort by local women, including Linda Houston, Bette Matheny and Julia Halloran, to help victims of family violence. In 1982, a donated eleven-room house allowed the group to open a short-term domestic violence shelter and add advocacy, counseling, support groups and a 24-hour hotline.

Douglas started with the predecessor agency in 1982, became executive director of STEPS in 1985 and later led both STEPS and Every Woman’s House in 1997. The agencies merged in 2006 to form OneEighty. The organization says Douglas helped drive a $4.23 million capital campaign that created the Gault Liberty Center and a separate emergency shelter, then helped raise more than $5 million for new addiction recovery residential facilities for men and women.

The scale of the operation makes the leadership change especially important for Holmes County. OneEighty says it served about 1,700 people in 2024, up 6% from the year before, and operates on an annual budget of more than $7 million drawn from about 40 revenue sources. It also says it runs ten long-term recovery houses and two transitional facilities.

Douglas has been recognized with the Women of Achievement Award and the Athena Award, and she has served as a past president of the Wooster Rotary Club and on the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce board. But for Holmes County, her legacy is measured less by awards than by access: whether someone in Millersburg, along the Holmes County Trail or elsewhere in the county can still get help quickly when life turns unstable. Under Robles, success will mean keeping that response fast, local and dependable.