CNN
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Norman Mineta, who oversaw the Division of Transportation through the September 11, 2001, terrorist assaults, died on Tuesday afternoon. He was 90.
“My dad handed away peacefully Tuesday afternoon at his house surrounded by his household,” David Mineta mentioned in a press release supplied by Mineta’s former chief of employees, John Flaherty.
Flaherty advised CNN that the elder Mineta died in Edgewater, Maryland, of a coronary heart ailment.
Mineta served in each the administrations of President Invoice Clinton, as commerce secretary, and President George W. Bush, as transportation secretary, the place he oversaw aviation safety throughout 9/11 and its aftermath.
Bush described Mineta’s legacy on Tuesday as “a beautiful American story about somebody who overcame hardship and prejudice.”
“As my Secretary of Transportation, he confirmed nice management in serving to forestall additional assaults on and after 9/11,” Bush wrote. “As I mentioned when presenting him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Norm has given his nation a lifetime of service, and he’s given his fellow residents an instance of management, devotion to obligation, and private character.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg remembered Mineta in a tweet as “a powerful bipartisan voice for American infrastructure, Asian American trailblazer, and exemplary chief in each native and federal workplace.”
Mineta and his household had been held at an internment camp for Japanese People throughout World Warfare II, according to his biography on the Bush administration’s official web site. Mineta later graduated from the College of California at Berkeley, in accordance with the Bush administration’s archives.
He began his political profession by serving on the Metropolis Council of San Jose, California, earlier than changing into the town’s mayor after which transferring on to Congress, the place he served for twenty years, elected as a Democrat.
Within the Home of Representatives, he sponsored the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which was signed into legislation by then-President Ronald Reagan and gave about $20,000 to every survivor of the Japanese internment camps. He additionally served on the Transportation Committee and finally turned its chair.
After Mineta left Congress, he labored for Lockheed Martin, after which was tapped by Clinton to exchange William Daley in main the Division of Commerce in 2000. At the time Clinton said, “I’m proud so as to add to Norm’s string of firsts by naming him the primary Asian Pacific American ever to carry a put up within the president’s Cupboard.”
When Bush introduced Mineta as his decide for transportation secretary in 2001, Mineta turned one in all few folks to serve in each Democratic and Republican Cupboards.
Instantly after the 9/11 assaults, Mineta led the method of closing US airspace and grounding flights. He was then charged with creating the Transportation Safety Administration.
Mineta resigned from the Bush administration in 2006 after serving for 5 and a half years.
The San Jose Metropolis Council voted to rename the town’s airport for him in 2001.
This story has been up to date with extra particulars.
