After about 20 minutes of chatting with James Cohen about Derby inside his office at the Valley Community Foundation, the organization’s president politely interrupts the interview by putting out his hand.
“Will you excuse me for one moment?” he asks.
Cohen puts on his tan sports coat, leaves his office and walks across the parking lot to the Edward F. Adzima Funeral Home.
He returns to the foundation’s office within a few minutes. Eighty-nine-year-old Joseph Romano passed away, Cohen explains. The funeral procession was about to start. Cohen had left to pay his respects to the Romano family.
Then, in a soft tone that conveys respect, he talks about the Romano family and the things Joseph Romano accomplished in the lower Naugatuck Valley.
Romano helped George Hegy create VARCA, Inc. in 1959. The non-profit business on Coon Hollow Road in Derby helps people who are developmentally disabled. Cohen explains that his own father, a Derby lawyer, helped Romano and Hegy set up the organization.
The gesture underscores why Cohen was the perfect choice to lead the Valley Community Foundation five years ago.
Cohen has dedicated his life to the lower Valley. He knows the history, the strong sense of community — and he is a gentleman’s gentleman.
The 65-year-old Derby native announced Tuesday he is retiring from his position of VCF president at the end of the year.
“I leave knowing that VCF is in a better place than it has ever been and I am confident that it is poised for a bright future,” he said.
Click here for the official announcement from the VCF.
The VCF
The Valley Community Foundation is a philanthropic group that has grown tremendously since launching in 2004.
In the simplest terms — they help people in the Valley, and they connect people who need help with people who want to help.
In just eight years, the foundation has amassed more than $14 million in assets. It manages 120 individual donor funds — that is, funds that are set up by groups, individuals or families that are dedicated to specific causes in the lower Naugatuck Valley.
The Health Initiative For Men (HiM) Fund, created by Frank and Judy Michaud and managed by the VCF, supports programs at Griffin Hospital related to men’s health issues.
Like the Valley Indy? The Valley Community Foundation played a key role in the creation of this news site. Full disclosure — the Online Journalism Project, the Valley Indy’s non-profit parent, has another application pending with the VCF.
Click here to read more about the VCF and what it does locally.
The Gentleman Lawyer
Cohen, a New Haven resident, grew up in Derby. His earliest memories of the city mix law and public service — two things that have defined his professional life.
His father, David, was an attorney in Derby, operating a firm above his grandfather Meyer’s dress shop — The Fair Shoppe — on Main Street where Derby City Hall stands today.
Cohen remembers seeing his father sworn in as a city judge in Derby, back when every town in the state had its own judge and court.
“It was in the late 40s. The governor was Chester Bowles. I couldn’t have been more than four years old. I remember my father had a robe on. It was in the Sterling Opera House, which at that point was Derby City Hall. It was just something that was very impressive to me,” Cohen said.
Cohen’s father was a huge influence, especially when it came to serving Derby and respecting your home town.
“My experience growing up here was excellent. It was ‘Leave It to Beaver,’” Cohen said. “In those days in Derby, if you were one of the few people who locked your front door, you didn’t lock the back door. And if you locked the front door, everyone probably knew where the key was.”
Cohen graduated from Derby High School and the University of Pennsylvania before receiving his law degree from the University of Connecticut.
After law school, Cohen was offered a job with a congressman in Washington, D.C. — but he wanted to practice law in Derby, like his father.
He worked in his father’s firm and became Derby’s corporation counsel within a few years of graduating law school. He was still in his 20s.
Municipal lawyers were busy in the 1970s. The feds and the state started to protect wetlands. The Freedom of Information Act was created. Prior to FOI, local governments could operate in the closet — and it was perfectly acceptable.
Cohen served as the city’s attorney under mayors Gene Micci and Edward Cecarelli. In the early 1990s, he was corporation counsel under Mayor Gino DiMauro.
“I enjoyed being corporation counsel. It was about serving the community. I wasn’t paid a significant amount of money, because that is not what is was about. It was about getting involved in my city,” Cohen said.
At VCF
Cohen became the VCF president when the organization was three years old.
He had already been practicing law in Derby for 37 years. It’s not like he needed a new career, but the previous president was leaving and someone needed to step up to run the fledgling organization.
“I was with Leon Sylvester and Greg Stamos after a meeting and they stopped and said to me ‘You can do this.’ They made me stop to think and I realized, ‘Yes, I could do this,’” Cohen said. “We talked about it for an hour and that was it. I jumped off the bridge.”
The photo gallery below is from the 2009 VCF annual meeting. Story continues after the photo gallery:
The position allowed him to tap into a lifetime of experiences — and connections — growing up and then serving the communities in the lower Valley.
Backed by a Board of Directors who share Cohen’s connection to the Valley, VCF has flourished, embarking on its own local philanthropic path while also maintaining close ties to The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.
“Jamie’s tenure encompassed a remarkable period of growth, maturation and accomplishment for VCF,” Ansonia attorney Greg Stamos, chairman of the VCF Board of Directors, said in a prepared statement Tuesday.
“Most certainly, his community leadership, community contacts and commitment to our mission played a significant role in achieving a sustained level of success,” Stamos said.
Cohen called his time at VCF the “capstone” of his career.
He turns 66 at the end of December. Retirement — which includes a trip to Italy — beckons.
“This is simply a case of asking where am I in my life and where I want to go. It’s time to move on,” Cohen said.
The VCF has formed an in-house search committee to find someone to fill Cohen’s shoes. The organization’s board of directors is working with Greenwich-based National Executives Service Corps to find candidates.
