Richard Cotton is the executive director of the

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...

. He assumed this role in 2017. Cotton is also a Port Authority board member.

Early life and education

Cotton was born in 1945 or 1946 in the

Hyde Park, Chicago Hyde Park is the 41st of the 77 community areas of Chicago. It is located on the South Side, near the shore of Lake Michigan south of the Loop. Hyde Park's official boundaries are 51st Street/Hyde Park Boulevard on the north, the Midway Pla ...

neighborhood of

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

. His mother, Sylvia Cotton, founded Illinois Action for Children, a nonprofit that focuses on ensuring all children, especially those facing poverty and racial injustice, have access the high-quality child care and early education they need to succeed in school and in life. His father, Eugene Cotton, served as a labor lawyer. Cotton has a BA from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

and a JD from

Yale Law School Yale Law School (Yale Law or YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824 and has been ranked as the best law school in the United States by ''U ...

Career

Cotton served as Supreme Court Associate Justice

William J. Brennan Jr. William Joseph "Bill" Brennan Jr. (April 25, 1906 – July 24, 1997) was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1956 to 1990. He was the seventh-longest serving justice ...

's clerk during 1970–1971. He served as

NBCUniversal NBCUniversal Media, LLC is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate corporation owned by Comcast and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, United States. NBCUniversal is primari ...

's general counsel and New York governor

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

's "transportation czar" prior to becoming the Port Authority's executive director. Cotton has advocated for a new air train running from Flushing to La Guardia. He has called this a one stop from downtown to the airport. Critiques have noted the transfers and distance involved to dispute this. This project has been viewed as an

vanity project that does not realize its intended purpose. At the outbreak of the pandemic, when testing was scarce for Port Authority employees, Andrew Cuomo helped Cotton receive a Covid-19 test along with other executives, like

Pat Foye Patrick Joseph Foye (born January 31, 1957) is an American lawyer who served as Chairman and CEO of the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). Prior to this role, he served as President of the MTA and Executive Director of the Por ...

and Cuomo family members.

Personal life

Cotton married Elizabeth W. Smith, the Assistant Commissioner of

New York City Department of Parks and Recreation The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, also called the Parks Department or NYC Parks, is the department of the government of New York City responsible for maintaining the city's parks system, preserving and maintaining the ecolog ...

, in 2011. On March 9, 2020, New York governor Andrew Cuomo announced that Cotton had been infected by

SARS-CoV-2 Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‑CoV‑2) is a strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the respiratory illness responsible for the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The virus previously had a ...

, the virus that causes

coronavirus disease 2019 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickly ...

. His wife also tested positive for the virus, and the couple were reported to have self-quarantined in their home. Cuomo reported on March 22 that Cotton had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 without having been hospitalized.

References

1940s births Living people Harvard University alumni People from Chicago Port Authority of New York and New Jersey people Yale Law School alumni Law clerks of the Supreme Court of the United States NBCUniversal people {{NewYork-politician-stub

Early life and education

Career

Personal life

See also

References