Mark Ira Cohen

Mark I. Cohen, 74, a resident of Albuquerque, NM, died Friday, July 5, 2019, from complications of bladder cancer and Parkinson’s disease in the presence of his wife Raye Symons Cohen and daughter Lindsay Cohen Jones. He was preceded in death by his father, Paul Cohen, mother Lillian Fine Cohen, and sister Sheila Joyce Cohen. Besides his wife and daughter, he is survived by his son-in-law, David Jones; grandson, Zachary; and sister, Helaine Cohen. Mark was born in Bay Shore, New York on Tuesday, October 16, 1944, and grew up in the Boston, MA area. Mark graduated from Newton North High School and the University of Pennsylvania, Class of 1966. He met Raye early in her freshman year when he was a sophomore. They became fast friends sharing her love of art and his love of music. Friendship blossomed into love, and they married Sunday, February 2, 1969, moving to Los Angeles where he took a position at Epic Records after being hired the previous year as Columbia Records’ first management trainee.

For the next few years Mark’s job entailed trips to San Francisco searching for new artists, bringing them into the studio to record. He worked briefly for the Grateful Dead managing their record company relations before he and Raye decided to go to India to meet a friend on the beaches of Goa. In 1973, they began a 2-year journey traveling in India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan where they would pick one place to spend 2-3 months living and experiencing the culture and the people who lived there. They returned to the same place the second year and renewed their friendships from New Delhi to Swayambhu, Nepal to Peshawar, Pakistan. Side trips allowed them to explore other parts of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

Following their return to the United States, Mark and Raye moved to Jacksonville, FL to run a family-owned beer wholesale business. Daughter Lindsay was born in 1978. The business was sold in 1985, and they returned to Philadelphia. Mark went on to Delaware Law School where he graduated in 1988, and passed the bar in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Deciding he preferred business to law, he and his father-in-law went into a health business together. After his father-in-law’s death in 1992, Mark returned to school getting his master’s degree and Ph.D. in political science in 2001 from Temple University. His dissertation research took him back to India where he and Raye renewed some of their old friendships and made new ones. Mark taught political science and political economy as an adjunct professor at Temple University until his move to Albuquerque, NM in early 2012. Always interested in business, he shared his knowledge as a SCORE mentor, a program that partners with the U. S. Small Business Administration to provide new businesses with experienced volunteer advisers.

A diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease in the fall of 2015 began to slowly curtail his activities. With bittersweet regret, he gave up his passion for long bicycle rides on the Bosque, but he continued to read 3 newspapers a day, The New Yorker Magazine, and The Economist. An avid reader until Parkinson’s made it difficult, he always had a book of fiction and a book of non-fiction by his bed. He was known for his quick wit, which was with him to the end, and his larger-than-life personality. He will be missed by friends and family from coast to coast and beyond. In lieu of flowers, please donate to the Holocaust & Intolerance Museum of New Mexico. www.nmholocaustmuseum.org. Memorial Services will be held on Friday, July 12, 2019, 11:30 a.m. at FRENCH – Lomas. NE.