Lee Covino

Lee Covino served in the United States Army from 1970 to 1971 and achieved the rank of Corporal.

Mr. Covino attended the College of Staten Island (CSI) on the GI Bill, and became a staunch advocate for veterans affairs as a peer counselor from 1973 to 1977.

From 1980 to 1984, Mr. Covino worked as an intervention counselor for the Veterans Affairs (VA) Vietnam Veterans Outreach Center in Brooklyn and Staten Island, assisting close to 1,000 Vietnam-era and combat veterans.

In July 1990, he was appointed to the Staten Island Borough President’s Cabinet, where he served as the Veterans Affairs Advisor and Director of Contracts and Procurement until his retirement in March 2014.

Mr. Covino was appointed to New York City’s Veterans Advisory Board by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg in 2002. He was reappointed in 2007 and again in 2012, ending his term as Vice-Chairman of the Board in April 2015.

His advocacy and dedication were notable. Mr. Covino played a major role in bringing the Vet Center and the VA Clinic to Staten Island, as well as in obtaining a Staten Island bus link to the VA Hospital in Brooklyn. Working with the Borough President, he coordinated annual Fleet Week activities and developed Operation Vet Care, which brought the VA’s outreach van to minority-based areas on Staten Island. He was involved with Operation Vet Call, which assisted veterans with resume development and job searches through the State Department of Labor, and Operation Vet Link, which assisted veterans with learning basic computer skills through free courses donated by local business schools.

He was a member of the VFW, American Legion, Vietnam Veterans of America, the Catholic War Veterans, AMVETS, the NYC Veterans Alliance, and the 369th Veterans Association. Mr. Covino also served as Treasurer of the United Staten Island Veterans’ Organization, Inc., an umbrella group of Staten Island veterans organizations which sponsors the annual Memorial Day Parade.

Mr. Covino was installed into the CSI Alumni Hall of Fame in March 1989. In 2004, the College of Staten Island Archives catalogued a collection of veterans’ issues, which Mr. Covino was involved in from 1973 to 1994.

Lee Covino lived in St. George, a part of Staten Island’s North Shore.