Norman Yoshio Mineta (November 12, 1931 – May 3, 2022) was an American politician and U.S. Army officer who served as a Cabinet secretary in the administrations of President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a Republican. He was a member of the Democratic Party, and was the highest-ranking East Asian American in the federal executive branch in American history.
Mineta served as Mayor of San Jose, California, from 1971 to 1975. He served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1975 to 1995. Mineta served as the United States secretary of commerce during the final months of Bill Clinton's presidency. He was the first person of East Asian descent to serve as a U.S. Cabinet secretary and the first Asian American mayor of a major U.S. city.
As the United States secretary of transportation for President Bush, Mineta was the only Democratic cabinet secretary in the Bush administration. He oversaw the creation of the Transportation Security Administration in response to the September 11 attacks that had occurred early in his tenure. On June 23, 2006, Mineta announced his resignation after more than five years as secretary of transportation, effective July 7, 2006, making him the longest-serving secretary of transportation in the department's history. A month later, the public relations firm Hill & Knowlton announced that Mineta would join it as a partner. In 2010, it was announced that Mineta would join L&L Energy as vice chairman. San Jose International Airport is named after him.
Mineta died on May 3, 2022, from a heart ailment in Edgewater, Maryland, at age 90.
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Early life and education
Norman Yoshio Mineta was born on November 12, 1931, in San Jose, California, to Japanese immigrant parents Kunisaku Mineta and Kane Watanabe, who were barred from becoming American citizens at that time by the Immigration Act of 1924.
During World War II, the Mineta family was interned for several years at Area 24, 7th Barracks, Unit B, in the Heart Mountain Relocation Center near Cody, Wyoming, along with thousands of other Japanese immigrants and Japanese Americans. Upon arrival to the camp, Mineta, a baseball fan, had his baseball bat confiscated by authorities because it could be used as a weapon. Many years later, after Mineta was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, a man sent Mineta a $1,500 bat that was once owned by Hank Aaron, which Mineta was forced to return as it violated the congressional ban on gifts valued over $250. Mineta said: "The damn government's taken my bat again."
While detained in the camp, Mineta, a Boy Scout, met fellow scout Alan Simpson, a future United States Senate member from Wyoming, who often visited the Boy Scouts in the internment camp with his troop. The two became close friends and remained political allies throughout their lives.
Mineta graduated from the University of California, Berkeley's School of Business Administration in 1953 with a degree in business administration. Upon graduation, he joined the United States Army and served as a military intelligence officer in Japan and South Korea. Mineta then joined his father in the Mineta Insurance Agency.
Career
Councilman and mayor of San Jose
In 1967, Mineta was appointed to a vacant San Jose City Council seat by mayor Ron James. He was elected to office for the first time after completing a term in the city council. Mineta was elected vice mayor by fellow councilors during that term.
Mineta ran against 14 other candidates in the 1971 election to replace outgoing mayor Ron James. Mineta won every precinct in the election with over 60% of the total vote and became the 59th mayor of San Jose, the first Japanese-American mayor of a major American city. As mayor, Mineta ended the city's 20-year-old policy of rapid growth by annexation, creating development-free areas in East and South San Jose. His vice mayor, Janet Gray Hayes, succeeded Mineta as mayor in 1975.
United States Congress
In 1974, Mineta ran for the United States House of Representatives in what was then California's 13th congressional district. The district was previously the 10th District, represented by retiring 11-term Republican Charles Gubser. Mineta won the Democratic nomination and defeated California State Assembly member George W. Milias with 52 percent of the vote. He was reelected 10 more times from this Silicon Valley–based district, which was renumbered as the 15th District in 1993, never dropping below 57 percent of the vote.
Mineta co-founded the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and served as its first chair. He served as chairman of the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure from 1992 to 1994. He chaired the committee's aviation subcommittee between 1981 and 1988, and chaired its Surface Transportation subcommittee from 1989 to 1991.
During his career in Congress, Mineta was a key author of the landmark Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. He pressed for more funding for the Federal Aviation Administration. Mineta was a driving force in the House of Representatives behind the passage of H.R. 442, while Senator Spark Matsunaga (Hawaii) "almost single-handedly" got the legislation passed in the Senate of the 100th Congress which became the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, a law that officially apologized for and redressed the injustices endured by Japanese Americans during World War II.
Private sector
Mineta resigned his seat mid-term to accept a position with Lockheed Martin in 1995. He chaired the National Civil Aviation Review Commission, which in 1997 issued recommendations on minimizing traffic congestion and reducing the aviation accident rate. The Clinton administration adopted many of the commission's recommendations, including reform of the Federal Aviation Administration to enable it to perform more like a business.
In 1999, Mineta received the L. Welch Pogue Award for Lifetime Achievement in Aviation. He was appointed to the board of directors of Horizon Lines effective January 1, 2007. Mineta had formerly served on the board of AECOM Technology Corporation and was on the board of SJW Corp.
Secretary of commerce
In 2000, President of the United States Bill Clinton nominated Mineta to serve as the United States Secretary of Commerce, making him the first Asian American to hold a presidential cabinet post. Clinton had wanted to nominate Mineta as United States Secretary of Transportation in 1992, but Mineta wanted to remain in Congress at that time.
Secretary of transportation
Mineta was appointed United States Secretary of Transportation by President George W. Bush in 2001, a post that he was offered eight years earlier by Bill Clinton. Mineta was the only Democratic Party government official to have served in Bush's cabinet and the first Secretary of Transportation to have previously served in a cabinet position. He became the first Asian American to hold the position, and only the fourth person to be a member of the cabinet under two presidents from different political parties (after Edwin Stanton, Henry L. Stimson and James R. Schlesinger). In 2004, Mineta received the Tony Jannus Award for his distinguished contributions to commercial air transportation.
Following Bush's reelection, Mineta was invited to continue in the position, and he did so until resigning in June 2006. When Mineta stepped down on July 7, 2006, he was the longest-serving Secretary of Transportation since the position's inception in 1967.
Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission about his experience in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center with Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney as American Airlines Flight 77 approached The Pentagon was not included in the 9/11 Commission Report. In one colloquy testified by Mineta, the vice president refers to orders concerning the plane approaching the Pentagon:
There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant.
Commissioner Lee Hamilton queried if the order was to shoot down the plane, to which Mineta replied that he did not know that specifically.
Mineta's testimony to the commission on Flight 77 differs somewhat significantly from the account provided in the January 22, 2002, edition of The Washington Post, as reported by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz in their series "10 Days in September".
After leaving the Bush administration
Hill & Knowlton announced on July 10, 2006, that Mineta would join the firm as vice chairman, effective July 24, 2006.
In 2005, Mineta received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member and Google co-founder Larry Page. In October 2006, he won the Wright Brothers Memorial Trophy. Two months later, Mineta was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2007, the Japanese government conferred upon him the Grand Cordon, Order of the Rising Sun.
On February 4, 2008, the day before the closely contested California Democratic primary, Mineta endorsed Barack Obama.
Beginning in the summer of 2008, Mineta began service as chairman of a panel of the National Academy of Public Administration overseeing a study of modernization efforts at the United States Coast Guard. Other notable members of the panel include former director of United States Office of Personnel Management Janice Lachance and former NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) administrator Sean O'Keefe.
In June 2010, Mineta was named co-chair of the Joint Ocean Commission Initiative. On August 10, 2010, he was named vice chair of L&L Energy, Inc., which was headquartered in Seattle and operated coal mines and other facilities related to coal production in China.
Mineta was a recipient of the Chubb Fellowship at Yale University from 2015 to 2016.
Legacy
The Mineta Transportation Institute was named after him. It was established by Congress in 1991 as a research institute focusing on issues related to intermodal surface transport in the United States. It is part of San Jose State University's Lucas Graduate School of Business in San Jose, California, and is currently directed by Karen Philbrick.
In 2001, while Mineta was serving as the United States Secretary of Transportation, the San Jose International Airport adopted his name to honor him. In 2024, a statue was erected there in Mineta's honor.
On September 15, 2008, California State Route 85, a freeway connecting the South San Jose area with Mountain View, California, was also designated the Norman Y. Mineta Highway in remembrance of Mineta.
In 2022, Congress renamed the Department of Transportation headquarters building as the William T. Coleman, Jr. and Norman Y. Mineta Federal Building, in honor of Mineta and another former Secretary, William Thaddeus Coleman Jr.
Personal life
Mineta's first marriage was to May Hinoki, which lasted from 1961 to 1986. In 1991, he married United Airlines flight attendant Danealia "Deni" Brantner. Mineta had two children from his first marriage and two stepchildren from Brantner's previous marriage. He had 11 grandchildren.
Mineta died on May 3, 2022, from a heart ailment in Edgewater, Maryland, at age 90.
