Deval Patrick

At 67 years old, Deval Patrick has this physical status:

Deval Laurdine Patrick (born July 31, 1956) is an American politician, civil rights advocate, and businessman who served as Massachusetts' 71st governor from 2007 to 2015. He was first elected in 2006, replacing Mitt Romney, who decided not to run for reelection but rather concentrate on his 2008 presidential campaign. In 2010, he was reelected. He was the first African-American governor of Massachusetts and the first Democratic governor of the state in 16 years after Michael Dukakis took power in 1991. Patrick served as the United States Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division under President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 1997. In the 2020 US presidential election, he served as a candidate for President of the United States for a brief period of time.

Patrick, a single mother on the South Side of Chicago, received a scholarship to Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts, in the eighth grade. He then went to Harvard College and Harvard Law School. After graduating, he practiced law with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund and later joined a Boston law firm, where he was named a partner at age 34. Bill Clinton named him as the United States assistant attorney general for the civil rights division of the United States Department of Justice in 1994, where he worked on topics such as racial profiling and police abuse.

During his governorship, Patrick oversaw the introduction of the state's health care reform plan, which had been introduced under Mitt Romney, increased funding to education and life sciences, and proposed a federal Race to the Top Education Grant was passed, boosting the Massachusetts Department of Transportation's minimum wage from $8 per hour to $11 by 2017. Massachusetts joined the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) under Patrick in an attempt to minimize greenhouse gas emissions (RGGI). Patrick's second term ended on January 6, 2011, he declared that he did not run for re-election in 2014.

Patrick is a managing director of Bain Capital and serves as the chairman of Our Generation Speaks, a non-profit accelerator and startup incubator whose aim is to bring together young Israeli and Palestinian leaders by entrepreneurship. He has also served on the Board of Directors at American Well, Inc., a telehealth firm.

Patrick was encouraged by members of his own inner circle and Barack Obama's inner circle, but Patrick denied a bid in 2020 in December 2018. Patrick, however, was reported to have called a handful leading Democrats and allies in November 2019 to declare that he would soon declare a 2020 presidential bid. He officially entered the race on November 14, 2019. Following a poor showing in the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, he called off his campaign on February 12, 2020.

Early life and education

Patrick was born on July 31, 1956 in Chicago's South Side, where his family lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the Robert Taylor Homes' housing projects. Patrick is the son of Emily Mae (née Wintersmith) and Pat Patrick, a Sun Ra jazz musician. Patrick's father and his family left their family in order to play music in New York City in 1959, but another woman had a daughter named La'Shon Anthony. According to reports, Deval and his father, who disapproved of his choice of high school, strained their relationship, but the two men soon reconciled. Patrick was raised by his mother, who traces her ances to African slaves in Kentucky.

When Patrick was in middle school, one of his teachers recommended A Better Chance, a national non-profit group dedicated to identifying, recruiting, and developing leaders among academically gifted minority students, which led him to Milton Academy in Milton, Massachusetts. Patrick graduated from Milton Academy in 1974 and went on to attend college, the first in his family. He graduated from Harvard College, where he served as a member of the Fly Club, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, which cum lauded in English and American literature, in 1978. Patrick was named "Best Oralist" in the Ames Moot Court Competition in 1981 at Harvard University.

Patrick obtained a J.D. degree from Harvard Law School in 1982, which was highly lauded. He proceeded to fail the State Bar of California exam twice before passing on his third attempt. Patrick then served as a law clerk to Judge Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit for one year. He joined the NAACP Legal Defense Fund (LDF), where he concentrated on the death penalty and voting rights issues.

Bill Clinton, then Governor of Arkansas, was sued by the federal court when he sued Clinton in a voting case while at LDF. He joined Hill & Barlow in 1986 and was named partner in 1990 at the age of 34. He held high-profile positions, including as the counsel for Desiree Washington's lawyer in her civil case against Mike Tyson while at Hill & Barlow.

Personal life

Patrick and his wife, Diane Patrick, a labor and employment law attorney, married in 1984. They have been living in Milton, Massachusetts, since 1989 and have two children, Sarah and Katherine. Katherine debuted publicly in July 2008, she revealed that she is lesbian and that her father was unaware of this while fighting a new bill in the state constitution that would have banned same-sex marriages. Patrick expressed sympathy for his daughter in a joint interview and said he was proud of her. Sarah Morgese, a former Italian soldier, married Marco Morgese, a former soldier in September 2011. Patrick was born as a grandfather when Sarah gave birth to Gianluca Noah Morgese on May 20, 2013.

Patrick and his family own a home in Richmond, Massachusetts, in addition to his Milton home. In 2013, Illinois governor Pat Quinn renamed a portion of Wabash Avenue in Chicago, where Patrick grew up, "Deval Patrick Way" in Patrick's honor. Patrick was named an Honorary Doctor of Laws by Harvard University on May 28, 2015.

Source

Professional career

President Bill Clinton nominated Patrick as the United States Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in 1994, but the Senate confirmed him later. The Federal affirmative action scheme was under judicial and political scrutiny, and Patrick defended Clinton's policies. Patrick also worked on topics such as racial profiling, police abuse, and the treatment of prisoners in prison.

Patrick oversaw an investigation into a string of arson of predominantly black churches around the South between 1995 and 1997. The probe brought together a variety of state and federal departments, and it was the first federal probe since 9/11. More than 100 arrests were made in the end, but no evidence of national or regional conspiration was found.

Patrick Johnson, a graduate of Day, Berry & Howard (later named Day Pitney LLP), was chosen by the federal district court to lead a committee of Texaco's Equality and Fairness Task Force in 1997 to oversee the implementation of a race discrimination deal. Patrick and his Task Force investigated and reformed Texaco's dynamic corporate work culture, as well as a blueprint for building an equitable workplace.

Some gay rights campaigners had chastised him for his time on the United Airlines (UAL) board. During this time, the company first protested an ordinance requiring it to provide domestic partnership insurance, but Patrick convincing UAL to provide such services to all employees, making it the first airline to do so.

Patrick was given the job as General Counsel of Texaco in 1999, partially because of his work on the Equality and Fairness Task Force, which was in charge of all of the company's legal affairs. Although he carried out his company's changing career paths, the bulk of his time was dedicated to researching and executing a merger, which culminated in larger Chevron Corp.

Patrick left Texaco in 2001 to become The Coca-Cola Company's Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. Patrick called for a complete investigation into reports that some workers at Coke bottlers in Colombia had been assaulted or even killed by paramilitary organisations as a result of union organizing activity. Patrick dismissed the charges as unsubstantiated and untrue, but advised that the company encourage an independent probe to lay all concerns to rest. Douglas Daft, Patrick's uncle, changed his mind, prompting Patrick's decision to leave Coke after initially supporting Patrick's opinion.

He served on the board of directors of ACC Capital Holdings, the parent company of Ameriquest and Argent Mortgage, from 2004 to 2006. Attorneys General around the country investigated Ameriquest, the country's biggest lender of so-called subprime mortgages, and it was under scrutiny by Attorneys General. Patrick joined the board at the behest of Ameriquest's founder, Roland Arnall, who asked for his assistance in handling the investigations and redefining the organization's culture. Ameriquest and Argent made more than $80 billion in subprime mortgages during his tenure on the board, but those investigating the inquiry found that the company was on the wrong track to change at the time Patrick left Ameriquest.

Patrick joined Bain Capital in 2015, where he now works as a Managing Director following his time as governor.

Source