About Eliot
Maine roots
Eliot Cutler was born and raised in Bangor. His parents were the children of immigrants who came to this country – to Bangor and Old Town – in search of freedom and a better life.
His mother’s father came to America at the age of 12 – alone, with no family and unable to speak English. He began his life in America as a young peddler, walking between Bangor and Calais selling his goods to homes along what is now Route 9, the “Airline.” He later married, and all three of his daughters graduated from college.
Eliot’s achievements are accomplishments that his grandfather could only have imagined in his dreams, and his successes are due in great measure to the values that he learned from his parents and grandparents, and from growing up in Bangor.
A tradition of public service
Eliot learned about the value and importance of public service from his parents. Catherine Cutler devoted herself to improving family and mental health care services and to the protection of women and children from domestic violence and abuse. Lawrence Cutler was a Bangor physician, the longtime head of the medical service at Eastern Maine General Hospital. His passion was public education, and he served as chairman of the Bangor School Board and for two decades as a member and as president of the board of trustees of the University of Maine.
Eliot has carried forward his family’s tradition of public service. Following his graduation from Harvard College, he worked in Washington, D.C. for Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine, helping to craft the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and other laws important to Maine. He later served as Associate Director for Natural Resources, Energy and Science in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where he was responsible for overseeing the policies – and the billions of taxpayer dollars being spent – at the Departments of Agriculture, Energy and Interior and the Environmental Protection Agency. His job was to make the tough decisions, to cut out programs that weren’t working, to reshape others and to force necessary changes in government policies.
He was the principal White House official for energy matters from 1977 to 1980, and at President Carter’s request, he helped negotiate a settlement to the Maine Indian Land Claims. Eliot also has been a senior official in four presidential campaigns.
A distinguished career as a businessman, entrepreneur and lawyer
Following his government service, Eliot founded the law firm of Cutler & Stanfield LLP, which grew under his leadership to be the second largest environmental law firm in the United States, representing largely public jurisdiction clients in nearly 30 states in complex infrastructure projects involving airports, highways and other major facilities.
A strong leader and seasoned negotiator in both private disputes and public sector matters, Eliot conceived and implemented the legal and political strategy that led to the development of the Denver International Airport, the only new commercial airport built in the United States for decades and one of the most successful airports in the world.
Following his firm’s merger with the international firm of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in 2000, Eliot’s law practice became increasingly international, and he lived in Beijing for more than two years, where he opened his firm’s first office in China.
Eliot has also been a highly successful businessman and entrepreneur. He was part of a small group that in 1988 bought the United Electric Co., a manufacturer of air conditioning components. He served on the board of directors for many years, until the company was sold to a much larger firm.
He was a business advisor and lawyer for Skanska USA, the American subsidiary of one of the world’s largest construction companies, as it grew from annual revenue of about $30 million in 1980 to about $3 billion in 1995. He later served for four years on the board of directors of the parent company Skanska AB, where he was the first American and only the second non-Swedish member of the board.
Eliot also helped to create the first of the Thornburg Investment Company mutual funds in 1981 and has served on the board of trustees of the Thornburg mutual funds for 28 years.
Eliot knows about creating businesses and meeting payrolls through building three successful law offices from the ground up, from his experience as a business owner and entrepreneur and from serving on the boards of public and private companies, as well as not for profit organizations.
Today
Eliot returned to Maine for good in 1999, and he lives in Cape Elizabeth with his wife Dr. Melanie Stewart Cutler. Eliot and Melanie have been married for 36 years, and their family includes three grown children – Abby (29), Zack (26) and Katherine (22).
Eliot was chairman of the board of visitors of the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine for nearly a decade, until November, 2009, and he helped lead the School to its position as one of the leading graduate schools of public policy in the United States.
His love of Maine, his dedication to public service and his conviction that Maine needs strong and independent leadership have led Eliot to become a candidate to be the next Governor of Maine.
