Paul Cooney, a longtime New York state and Albany County engineer who helped build many major bridges, highways and stadiums in the region, died at 88 on Jan. 22 after a long cancer battle.
Paul Cooney, a Union College graduate and licensed professional engineer and surveyor, was a quintessential engineer who engineered his own obituary as if designing a highway.
Paul Cooney on a visit to the Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston. He often visited other engineering projects and brought his daughter along.
Paul and Phyllis Cooney with their children, Kate Knight and Patrick Cooney.
Paul and Phyllis Cooney, who wed in 1959.
Paul Cooney, a longtime New York state and Albany County engineer who helped build many major bridges, highways and stadiums in the region, died at 88 on Jan. 22 after a long cancer battle.
MENANDS — When Paul Cooney’s daughter summed up her father’s life as a licensed professional engineer and surveyor by profession and Good Samaritan by temperament, she settled on a quote by Mister Rogers.
“Look for the helpers,” Fred Rogers said, advice made famous as a refuge in hard times.
Cooney, who died on Jan. 22 at 88 after a long struggle with cancer, was a foundational helper. He built infrastructure and created connective tissue that binds a community — the unsung and quotidian, small deeds he did without seeking credit.
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“If someone in the village had an accident or needed help, they called my dad because he was a reassuring presence and knew how to get things done,” said his daughter, Kate Knight, 52. As a girl, she loved to visit his DOT office on Holland Avenue and raid a supply of lemon drops in his desk.
He worked long hours but made time to read her bedtime stories. “The Rescuers” was her favorite, a British children’s novel about mice assisting human prisoners. Her dad conjured silly voices.
“He’d fall asleep reading me the book and I’d have to wake him up,” she recalled.
His engineering skills with the state Department of Transportation and as Albany County engineer were forged into arterials around the Empire State Plaza, the Collar City Bridge, the Knickerbocker Arena (now MVP Arena), Heritage Park baseball stadium and miles of Capital Region interstates.
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He proudly held an internal DOT record: most miles driven in reverse in DOT vehicles on bridge and highway projects along the Hudson River.
“He was an engineer to the end. He engineered his own obituary like he was designing a highway,” said Bob Derocher, 61, a former Troy Record reporter who helped his longtime friend draft a lengthy obituary that ran in the Times Union.
Cooney and his wife, Phyllis, were dear friends of Derocher’s in-laws for more than 70 years. They formed a big, extended family of sorts.
“He was always Uncle Paul to my three sons and more than a dozen nieces and nephews,” Derocher said. “The kids could tell he was genuinely interested in what they were doing.”
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One of Derocher’s sons competed in the pole vault on Shaker High School’s varsity track team. Uncle Paul rarely missed a meet. “He told stories about running track at CBA in the '50s as a way to connect with my son,” Derocher said.
He received many professional honors, including NYS Engineer of the Year in 1975. Yet it was as a church trustee and parish council member; volunteer paramedic with his local ambulance squad; stalwart attendee of Menands village meetings; and ambassador at the Albany International Airport where Cooney’s quiet selflessness was on display.
“Paul had a light touch as an ambassador. He could go up to passengers, crack a joke to ease the tension and open up a conversation that made them feel at ease,” said Phil Calderone, airport CEO. They first crossed paths in the early 1980s, when Cooney was Albany County’s engineer and Calderone served as a part-time lawyer for the county.
Calderone read David Brooks’ column in Sunday’s New York Times and was reminded of how Cooney was a balm for what the columnist called our “sad, lonely, angry and mean society.” Brooks quoted the writer Iris Murdoch, who described a key to becoming a better person involves casting “a just and loving attention” on others.
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“Whether it was with his church or civic organizations or at the airport, Paul was constantly casting a just and loving attention on others,” Calderone said.
Cooney was the last surviving member of the first group of 40 airport ambassadors who signed up when the program started in 1995. “He served as a role model to new ambassadors and was wonderful with our travelers,” said Helen Chadderdon, director of the airport ambassadors’ program. Cooney volunteered each Wednesday afternoon for a two-hour shift, even during cancer treatments. He logged an estimated 2,800 hours over three decades.
His favorite perch was just beyond the security checkpoint, near Chick-fil-A. “Paul loved to engage passengers in conversation and made their experience at the airport friendly and memorable,” Chadderdon said. “We’re so sad that he’s gone.”
After serving in the Army as an infantry school instructor at Fort Benning, now renamed Fort Moore, Cooney, married with an infant son, worked full-time, took night classes and eventually earned an engineering degree at Union College. He carried his reputation as a straight arrow into the workaday world.
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“A female employee got hassled on a job by a road crew and came back to the office in tears,” his daughter recalled. “My dad went right out there and set them straight. It never happened again.”
As Albany County engineer, Cooney reviewed plans for construction of the county-owned Knickerbocker Arena. He avoided the scandal that sent County Executive Jim Coyne to federal prison in 1992 for nearly four years after being convicted of conspiracy, bribery and extortion. The charges stemmed from Coyne’s steering the arena design contract to architect J. Gregory Crozier, who was sentenced to 1½ years in federal prison.
“He was a loyal Democrat to a point, but he would call things out if they weren’t right,” Derocher said. “He was not a rubber stamp for Jim Coyne or Harold Joyce.”
“He stayed clear if he sensed something was not being done the right way,” his daughter said. After the Knickerbocker Arena was built, as a teenager she pestered her dad to use his county connections to get her and friends free concert tickets.
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“Absolutely not,” he said. He cut her off before she could ask a second time. She stopped asking.
Cooney and his wife, Phyllis, married in 1959 and lived in the same house in Menands for more than 60 years. He served as ombudsman for nursing homes in Albany County and volunteered as adviser of the Capital City Future City Competition, where youths envision a more sustainable community.
He savored the solitude of the Dominican Retreat Center in Niskayuna and sang in the choir of St. Pius X Catholic Church in Loudonville, where a Funeral Mass will be held on Feb. 5 at 11 a.m. Cooney is survived by his wife, two children, three grandchildren and many who called him Uncle Paul. His legacy carries on in simple things.
“I tell my friends I’m a daughter of a civil engineer,” Knight said. “I can read and fold maps, pack a suitcase and load a car.”
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Paul Grondahl is the Opalka Endowed Director of the New York State Writers Institute at the University at Albany and a former Times Union reporter. He can be reached at grondahlpaul@gmail.com
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