Richard B. Cohen

Cohen was born to a Jewish family.[2] In 1918, Cohen's grandfather, Israel Cohen, co-founded the food distributor, C&S Wholesalers in Worcester, Massachusetts.[3] Israel's son, Lester, a bomber navigator during World War II, expanded the business into supplying military bases.[3] In 1970, Richard Cohen graduated from the Deerfield Academy in Deerfield, Massachusetts and then in 1974, he graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree economics, concentrating in accounting, and joined the family company. After a painful union strike, he persuaded his father to move the company to Brattleboro, Vermont.[3]

In 1989, Cohen took control of C&S after his father retired. In 2003, he moved the company headquarters to Keene, New Hampshire.[3] As the food distribution business is very low margin and customer retention is critical,[3] C&S has been able to attain excellent efficiencies - less than 2 percent of the orders processed have errors or omissions - by using generous performance incentives combined with self-managed teams of workers who are responsible for assembling customer orders thereby eliminating costly supervisors.[3] If a customer is having trouble, rather than letting them go bankrupt (and losing them as a customer), Cohen will often purchase them outright, restructure their operations, and then sell them later for a profit.[4] Since 2008, Cohen has been a director at the Food Marketing Institute and is a director of Food Distribution Institute.

Cohen is also founder of Symbotic LLC, which produces an automated storage and retrieval system for dry goods. The system is used by C&S and other large retailers.[5]

The Holocaust studies center at Keene State College was renamed after the Cohens in thanks of their financial support. In 2002, Cohen was a national finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award. He was also awarded an honorary doctorate from Assumption College. He serves on the Board of Trustees at the Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts.

Cohen is married to Jan Cohen, executive producer of the Kaddish Project, a touring musical on genocide; the couple have three daughters.[3]