By George Lauriat, AJOT Mike Leone, now in his early sixties, looks remarkably young - with the exception of that great shock of white hair - for a man who has just completed his second career. Leone has just retired after 14 years as Port Director for Massport (Massachusetts Ports Authority) and 19 years of service overall. This follows a 22-year career in the US Coast Guard. All in, Leone logged 33-years of public service in the maritime sector, quite a feat given the era of high turnover and burnout. He entered the US Coast Guard Academy in 1967 after graduating from Burlington High School (Massachusetts), where sports played a big role in his development. With three brothers, he had built in competition in everything all the time.
(L to R) Nicola Arena – Chairman, MSC USA Inc., Mike Leone – Port Director for Massport
“I was pretty decent in football,” Leone said in an interview with the AJOT. “Pretty decent” was an understatement, as he is in the Burlington High School Hall of Fame, not to mention a “pretty decent” student as well. He also added three years of football at the Academy, and by all accounts as a running back was a hard man to tackle. But being tackled by some hefty linebackers isn’t quite the same as tackling the fully rigged barque Eagle, the Academy’s training vessel. “The first time I climbed the rigging was at sea during the midnight watch, and I had to clear some damage to the royals (highest sail on the 147-foot mast,)” Leone reminisced. “I must have taken the entire four hour watch to get up there.” “I was thinking they named the football field, ‘Jones Field’ after a cadet that fell off the rigging, and I didn’t want anything named after me.” After graduation Leone was assigned to the Port of Boston and USCG 327-foot cutter Duane, one of the Secretary class built in the 1930s. This was during the Vietnam War era, and Mike and his wife Mary moved around various postings in typical military fashion. With a child on the way, Leone took a post in Headquarters in SAR (Search & Rescue) planning. As his tour was ending, the Coast Guard gave him a chance to study law, and he enrolled at George Washington University Law School. As a Coast Guard lawyer Leone had a wide variety of assignments ranging from environmental (a lot of Coast Guard buoys were stored on sites with environmental clean up issues), drugs, and military court marshal hearings. Over his career, Leone worked prosecution, defense and judge at various times and was Regional Counsel for all Coast Guard Commands in the Northeast. The experience helped Leone develop into a formidable negotiator, a skill that would come in handy in his next career. The entire experience also left Mike with a number of life-long friends that he had served with including the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey Commerce Director [Admiral] Richard (Rick) Lararabee, who Mike served with on four occasions and Fred Mulligan, a Massport Board Member who was a classmate a the USCG Academy.
Capt. John O’Connor III, Captain of the Port Coast Guard, presents Mike Leone with the Coast Guard Meritorious Public Service Award
After retiring from the Coast Guard, an opening came up in Massport’s legal department in 1993. Mike decided this was a good opportunity to use his background in maritime related law, and he was appointed Chief Legal Counsel to Massport’s Maritime Department. “I didn’t think of it so much as a career, but as an opportunity to learn some things and use my experience until another opportunity came around.” The other opportunity came from a direction decidedly close to home as the Port Director job came up. At that moment, Massport was engaged in consolidating the port’s container operations into one terminal, Conley, by moving services over from Moran. The former Port Director, Ralph Cox an