WALTHAM, Mass. — Former Waltham City Clerk Peter Koutoujian died suddenly at his Waltham home on Friday, January 16, 2015. He was 77.
Peter was born in Boston on January 20, 1937, a son of Armenian immigrants Abraham and Sarah (DerBedrosian) Koutoujian, and moved to Waltham as a child. He was a graduate of Waltham High School and Newton Junior College. After that he served with the United States Air Force.
In his early years, Koutoujian worked as a realtor and then in sales with Dunn and Bradstreet and the Research Institute of America. After serving for two terms on the Waltham City Council he became Waltham’s assistant city clerk. Following the retirement of Joseph Trombley, he was selected to head the department, a position that he held for thirty years.
Over time his institutional knowledge of how governance worked earned him a reputation as an expert in the field. He had been a longtime member and a past president of the Massachusetts City Clerks’ Association and enjoyed lifelong friendships with his colleagues from across the state.
In retirement he was always willing to lend a hand at clerk’s offices that needed help at election time or to fill in whenever the need arose. His experience in election procedures earned him a spot internationally when he was selected to be part of a team to oversee the vote during the past decade in Armenia and in Kosovo.
