Barbara Ann Ruggiero, 69, of Dongan Hills, who derived great satisfaction from her job as an executive secretary, died yesterday in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Manhattan.

Born Barbara Ann Auletta in Manhattan, she grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School there. After she and Vincent Ruggiero were married, the couple lived in the Bronx before moving to Dongan Hills in about 1970.

For more than 20 years, Mrs. Ruggiero worked as an executive secretary for the Port Authority. She retired in 1997.  Her family described her as a very intelligent woman with an independent spirit who knew her own mind.

Mrs. Ruggiero was possessed of great energy and worked throughout her life, said her niece, Cari DeGorter.

She cared for her mother, and for her husband when he became sick. She enjoyed spending time with friends, her nieces and nephews and their children.

"She was just happy to be alive," Mrs. DeGorter said.  Mrs. Ruggiero's husband of more than 30 years, Vincent, died in 1998.  Surviving are her mother, Sally Auletta; her brother, Fred Auletta, and her sister, Joyce Marchica.

The funeral will be Monday from the Virginia Funeral Chapel, Dongan Hills, with a mass at 10 a.m. in St. Christopher's R.C. Church, Grant City. Burial will follow in Moravian Cemetery, New Dorp.