Former Mississippi Trucking President Cotten Dies

This story appears in the Aug. 20 print edition of Transport Topics.

H. Dean Cotten, the former president of the Mississippi Trucking Association and one of American Trucking Associations’ longest-serving state affiliate executives, died Aug. 13 at the age of 74 in Ridgeland, Miss.

Cotten became MTA president in 1974, a job he held for 32 years until his retirement in 2006.

“He will be remembered as a consummate state trucking association executive and leader who served as a trusted and well-respected ambassador for the trucking industry both in Mississippi and across our nation,” said his successor, MTA President David Roberts.

When Cotten announced in 2005 that he would be retiring, he said one of his greatest achievements was persuading state policymakers to repeal a law prohibiting trucks over 73,280 pounds and 55 feet long on Mississippi roads.

Cotten created a group self-insured workers’ compensation fund for MTA members, and when he retired, the H. Dean Cotten Scholarship Foundation was formed to help children of truck operators go to college.

Cotten served on several state committees and task forces and as national chairman of the Trucking Association Executives Council of ATA.

“Dean was one of the most unique individuals I’ve had the joy to know,” said Rick Todd, president of the South Carolina Trucking Association. “He could be a lightning rod one moment, then the most considerate the next . . . certainly a special member and bona fide cultural icon within the TAEC family.”

Shortly before retiring in 2005, Cotten said in an interview with Transport Topics that when he took over as president, the state trucking association had “no money and no property.” When he left, though, the association owned its Jackson office building and had $25 million, according to the obituary supplied by his family,

“He was the best at getting the most support out of his membership,” said Frank Filgo, president of the Alabama Trucking Association. “His accomplishments speak for themselves: growing his state trucking association into one that was the envy of most. And believe me, he knew how to ‘walk the talk,’ ” Filgo said.

Filgo recalled that when he became head of the Alabama affiliate 18 years ago, Cotten was among the first to offer help.

Dale Bennett, president of the Virginia Trucking Association, called Cotten an “extraordinary individual with a colorful sense of humor that sometimes veiled his keen intelligence and savvy wisdom.”

Cotten was an effective, passionate advocate for trucking who built his organization into one of the most successful state affiliates, Bennett said.

“We often speak of people being memorable, but there is no doubt that if you ever met Dean Cotten, you will never forget him,” Bennett said. Behind his “entertaining exterior was a generous and sentimental person,” he said.

Born in 1937 in McComb, Miss., Cotten did not start his working life in trucking. After graduating from McComb High School in 1955, he worked for 10 years as a telegraph operator for the Illinois Central Railroad.

Cotten then became executive director of the Marion County Chamber of Commerce and served on the board of the U.S. Junior Chamber of Commerce.

Cotten spent nine years in various chamber of commerce leadership jobs in Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas before being hired to run his home state’s ATA affiliate.

Cotten was preceded in death by his son, Christopher. Survivors include his daughter, Becky, and her husband; six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, sister Bette and Cotten’s companion, Anna Russom Grantham.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be sent to the scholarship foundation he created: H. Dean Cotten Scholarship Foundation, c/o Mississippi Trucking Association, 825 North President St., Jackson, MS 39202.