Showing 1 - 10 of 53 Items
Date: 2009-03-28
Creator: Charles 'Chuck' B Kruger
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Charles “Chuck” Kruger was born in Morristown, New Jersey, on July 2, 1950. His parents were Charles Bromley Kruger and Barbara Burke Kruger. His father was a WWII veteran and captain of a B-17 before starting an aviation business and then going into the family business. As a boy Chuck sang in St. Peter’s Church boys’ choir, and he started playing guitar at age 14. Chuck went to boarding school in New Hope, where he became interested in theatre, English, and writing. After high school, he went to New York City, where he played in a band and sang in the Masterwork Chorus for about a year. He attended Nasson College, started his own acoustic band, lived off-campus and did gigs at the ski areas. After graduating, he performed professionally and met with success as a singer/songwriter solo act. He married and had a son in 1984. He drove and helped raise funds for George Mitchell and became increasingly interested in Maine politics. In 1986 he began to work on campaigns and joined the State Committee while also working for MBNA. At the time of this interview, he had recently been elected to the Maine state legislature.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family background and education; Chuck’s father’s experience in the war; singing and playing in New York in 1969; attending Nasson College in Maine and the ski area gigs with the Mirror Lake Band; the Profile Theater Company; career as a professional musician and recording albums; driving for Mitchell in 1974; performing at fund raisers; story about Mitchell and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier Ceremony; working in Maine politics; booking off-site programming for MBNA; the decision to run for state senate; being a state senator; tax reform and not creating a bill; thoughts and memories of the business and people involved; reflections on Mitchell; and the state legislature today.
Date: 2009-01-10
Creator: Sharon A Sudbay
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Sharon Sudbay was born on October 10, 1958, in Portland, Maine, to Rita Madonna Joyce and Charles Clifford Sudbay, Jr. She grew up on Munjoy Hill in Portland and graduated from Portland High School. She attended the University of New Hampshire and worked as a telephone operator throughout her college years; she was graduated with a degree in political science in 1980. She volunteered on Harold Pachios’s 1980 congressional campaign and learned FEC reporting. She worked on Joe Brennan’s 1982 gubernatorial campaign and organized fund raisers. She was hired to work for Mitchell’s 1982 campaign and stayed on after the election to organize town hall meetings and handle casework in Portland; she worked for Mitchell until he retired from the Senate in 1994. She also worked on his 1988 reelection campaign and Governor Brennan’s 1990 reelection campaign. After Senator Mitchell left the Senate, she took a job with Jim Mitchell on his congressional race and later worked in a consulting firm with him.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: growing up in Portland, Maine, on Munjoy Hill; Sudbay’s Irish family; Portland High School; going to school at the University of New Hampshire and deciding to major in political science; watching the 1972 national conventions; how Sudbay’s grandfather worked the longshore with Joseph Brennan; working as a telephone operator; working on Harold Pachios’s congressional campaign and submitting the campaign’s FEC reports; coordinating fund raisers, including one for Joe Brennan that brought Ted Kennedy up to Maine; working on the 1982 Mitchell campaign handling finances; the office at the corner of Congress and High Street; collecting voter lists from around the state; campaign finance rules; the Brennan people and the Mitchell people; an anecdote about doing visibility with Mike Hastings and Bill Anderson; going to Senator Mitchell’s swearing-in; handling casework for Mitchell in Portland; her mother’s reaction to Sudbay’s decision to work on Mitchell’s campaign; the hearings in Maine on Social Security; working for Jim Mitchell’s congressional primary campaign and working with him at the Public Affairs Group; Sudbay’s consulting firm and her work on bringing natural gas to Maine; her trip to Morocco; Mitchell and Sudbay’s involvement in the Boys and Girls Clubs; Mitchell’s work on the Irish peace accords and the Olympics corruption investigation; an anecdote about driving Mitchell and Muskie to a McDonald’s and their ensuing conversation about Jeffersonian democracy; an anecdote about picking up some groceries for Mitchell and his putting “something chocolate” on the list; Sudbay’s plans to go to President Obama’s inauguration; and President Clinton’s inauguration.
Date: 2008-08-22
Creator: Seth W Brewster
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Seth Brewster was born on January 8, 1960, in Worcester, Massachusetts, and grew up in Manchester, Maine, where his father worked for Central Maine Power. He attended local public school until his junior year of high school, when he transferred to Deerfield Academy. He was graduated from Dartmouth College in 1982 with a double major in engineering sciences and economics. After college he worked for Arthur Andersen Consulting, based in New York City. He attended law school in Boston and took the bar exam in Massachusetts and Maine. In 1991, he pursued an opportunity to work for Senator Mitchell in Washington, D.C. as a trade legislative aide. He remained in that position until Mitchell decided not to seek reelection in 1994. In early 1995, he joined Verrill Dana, a law firm in Portland, Maine, where he remained at the time of this interview.
Summary
Interview includes discussions of: Kent’s Hill School; Deerfield Academy; Dartmouth College and Dartmouth culture; the modern pentathlon; Arthur Andersen Consulting; clerkship for Judge William G. Young; the Levasseur case; the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the Uruguay round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; Senator Mitchell’s role in passing the NAFTA as majority leader; the responsibilities of a trade legislative aide; Mitchell’s decision to resign from the Senate; commercial and anti-trust litigation in Maine and how that ties in with Brewster’s work on the Hill; and an anecdote about being introduced to President Clinton by Senator Mitchell.
Date: 2009-04-03
Creator: Horace 'Hoddy' A Hildreth, Jr.
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Horace “Hoddy” Hildreth was born on December 17, 1931, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Katherine Cable Wing and Horace A. Hildreth, Sr. His father attended Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School, was Maine state senator, and later served as Maine’s governor from 1942 to 1946. His mother, Katherine Hildreth, was from the Midwest and attended Vassar College. Hoddy was graduated from Bowdoin College with a major in English and was a classmate of George Mitchell. He earned his law degree at Columbia and then returned to Maine to practice law at Pierce Atwood, where he did lobbying for paper companies. He was elected to the state Senate in 1966 and worked on creating environmental and conservation laws. He ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1968, then started his own law practice and began an environmental lobby in Augusta. He practiced law until 1979, when he became executive director for his father’s company, Diversified Communications. Although mostly retired from the company, he continues an active involvement with conservation issues. At the time of this interview, he was on the boards for the Conservation Law Foundation and the Maine League of Conservation Voters.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family background; father’s political career; living in the Blaine House as the son of the governor; attending Bowdoin College in the 1950s as a classmate of George Mitchell; his father’s ambassadorship to Pakistan and his last semester of college there; practicing law and lobbying in Augusta for Pierce Atwood and the paper companies; term as a state senator and the creation of environmental law in Maine; Land Use Regulation Law; environmental lobby in Augusta; his father’s company, Diversified Communications; interest in conservation issues and involvement with organizations like the Conservation Law Foundation; and reflecting on George Mitchell from the Republican point of view.
Date: 2008-10-07
Creator: Sanford 'Sonny' Miller
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Sanford “Sonny” Miller was born in Bangor, Maine, on January 18, 1927, to Myer and Rena Miller. He grew up in Bangor and completed a commercial course of study at Bangor High School, graduating in 1944. He enlisted in the Navy V-6 program at the age of seventeen and served in the Pacific theater of World War II, working as a storekeeper in the Philippines. He was discharged in 1946 and spent a year studying at Bentley University in Boston, and he was a bookkeeper for Hammond Motors for two years. He worked in the jukebox and pinball machine business for a time, eventually returning to Bangor to enter the restaurant business with his family. For many years he owned Miller’s Restaurant in Bangor; he died November 26, 2009.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: family and educational background; his father’s prediction of developments in international relations; the Jewish community in Bangor; an anecdote about how Miller started school too early; Miller’s experience in the Navy; stories about how the storekeeper in the Philippines got better food supplies; how Miller’s mother got him into college; attending Bentley University on the GI Bill; the jukebox and pinball business; opening Miller’s Luncheonette; opening the newer Miller’s Restaurant locations; meeting John Glenn; Marshall Stern; an anecdote about delivering milk for George Mitchell and joking about drinking milk in their shorts in the Blaine House if Mitchell won the governor’s race; going to Augusta for Mitchell’s swearing-in as a federal judge; traveling to Washington, D.C. to see Muskie’s swearing-in as secretary of state and going to the White House; Mitchell’s saying he’d prefer to spend time with Miller than go to the White House for dinner; keeping his word not to bother Mitchell with political favors; Miller’s involvement in the University of Maine; and talking with Mitchell about establishing scholarships.
Date: 2008-06-12
Creator: Clyde MacDonald
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Clyde MacDonald, Jr. was born in 1929 in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, to Nellie MacDonald and Clyde MacDonald, Sr., who were both of Canadian descent. The oldest of four children, Clyde enlisted in the Army and served in Germany during the Korean War. After his military discharge, he became interested in politics at the local level. He attended Portland Junior College for two years and then Bates College for two years. He later earned a doctorate at the University of Maine while teaching undergraduate classes there. During that period, he became active in local Democratic politics and found himself in more regular contact with Senator Muskie. He eventually went to work for Muskie, becoming an aide and close personal adviser. He subsequently transitioned to Senator Mitchell’s office, where he was the field representative in Bangor throughout Mitchell’s Senate career, hiring many Maine field office staff.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: the scope of his role as a field rep for Senator Mitchell in Bangor; the different kinds of issues he dealt with; opening the office in Presque Isle; hiring Julia Nault, Mary LeBlanc, Ida McDonald and Tom Bertocci and the important qualities to look for when hiring people for political jobs; Mitchell’s intellectual and physical energy; the aspects of traveling in the state that Mitchell did and did not enjoy; the food irradiation issue and Mitchell’s solution; Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA) and the work they did to designate Bangor as one; the relationship that Mitchell’s office and MacDonald personally had with the Bangor Daily News and Maine press in general; and the difference between print press and TV coverage.
Date: 2008-09-27
Creator: G. Arnold Roach
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
George “Arnold” Roach was born in Rockland, Maine, on July 28th, 1929, to Nora Nelson Roach and Herbert Ezio Roach. He grew up in Houlton and summered in Rockland. His father, Herbert Roach, was a potato farmer, buyer, and machinery dealer. Arnold attended the University of Maine and in 1951 joined the National Guard. While farming potatoes in Aroostook County, he served on the National Potato Promotion Board as board president and acted as an adviser to Mitchell on Maine’s agricultural issues. He was a part of the Clinton-Gore transition team for the Department of Agriculture and worked for the Clinton administration for eight years. At the time of this interview, he was retired and living in southern Aroostook County.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: background in potato politics; working on the Clinton-Gore transition team; involvement with the Department of Agriculture; the National Guard Army Reserve program; Mitchell's campaign for governor 1974; interactions with Mitchell, photographs; topics in potato politics; potato farming and the organic food movement; Mitchell's potato advisors and involvement in the trade; Roach's daughter Elizabeth's position as the director of the U.S Senate Page Program; and general thoughts about Mitchell.
Date: 2009-04-24
Creator: Jay Davis
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Jay Davis was born May 4, 1943, in Hartford, Connecticut, to Frank and Helen Davis. His father worked for a company that made piano keys, and his mother was a homemaker, raising five children. His great-great-great uncle, Morgan G. Bulkeley, was governor of Connecticut, U.S. Senator, and the first president of baseball’s National League. Jay grew up in Ivoryton, Connecticut, and went to Holderness School in New Hampshire during his high school years. He attended Williams College and, after engaging briefly in journalism and community organizing in Hartford, he attended Harvard University, where he earned a master’s in education. He taught for two years at the Oak Grove-Coburn School in Vassalboro, Maine, then moved to Belfast, Maine, and was elected to serve as a selectman. He began writing a newspaper column for The Republican Journal and later became editor. He has written for Down East, started The Waldo Independent, and was an editor of the Maine Times. At the time of this interview, he worked for Village Soup in Waldo County out of the Belfast office.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: growing up in Ivoryton, Connecticut; visiting New York City as a child; working for The Berkshire Eagle and bringing in the newspaper guild; Davis’s principles; the Oak Grove-Coburn School; working for The Republican Journal; working for the North End Community Action Project (NECAP) in Hartford and forfeiting his scholarship at The Hartford Times; starting The Waldo Independent; Village Soup; local journalism; an anecdote about Senator Cohen’s coming into their Republican Journal office to discuss his build-down theory; meeting George Mitchell; an anecdote about having a beer with Mitchell and asking him about Dave Emery; MBNA’s effect on Belfast, Maine; the University of Maine satellite campus in Belfast; the political bent of Belfast and Waldo County; the role of the city council; speculation about Mitchell’s becoming commissioner of baseball; and Davis’s connection to baseball.
Date: 2009-09-11
Creator: Eliot R Cutler
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Eliot Raphael Cutler was born in 1946 in Bangor, Maine. His mother was an economist and his father, a physician, was responsible for the reorganization of the Maine university system; the Cutler Health Center in Orono, Maine, is named in his honor. As a sophomore in high school, Eliot transferred from Bangor High School to Deerfield Academy. He attended Harvard University and Georgetown Law School. While at Harvard he was involved with the Harvard Lampoon. He worked as a legislative assistant and clerk for Senator Muskie from 1967 to 1972 and was a senior staff person at the OMB during the Carter administration. He has served on the Board of Visitors of the Muskie School for Public Service at University of Southern Maine in Portland, Maine. At the time of this Interview, he was a member of the law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, LLP.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: Cutler’s candidacy for governor; campaigns Cutler has worked on, including those for Muskie, Carter, and Mondale; Cutler’s connection to China; Cutler’s role as chairman of the Board of Visitors at the Muskie School; political attention to energy issues under Carter and today; Cutler's meeting George Mitchell as an intern in Muskie’s office; how Mitchell’s operating style differed from Muskie’s; Cutler’s role as press secretary in 1968 and contact with the media; Mitchell’s role in Muskie’s fund-raising in 1968 and 1972; the 1972 campaign; Muskie as a negotiator; Mitchell’s role in Ireland and the Middle East; and Marshall Stern.
Date: 2009-05-09
Creator: Ralph 'Ike' I Lancaster, Jr.
Access: Open access
Biographial Note
Ralph I. Lancaster, Jr. was born on May 5, 1930, in Bangor, Maine, to Ralph I. Lancaster, Sr. and Mary Kelleher Lancaster. He was reared in Bangor by Bridget and Charles Mylan. He attended high school at John Bapst and went on to the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, being graduated in 1952 with a degree in English and a minor in history. He earned his law degree from Harvard Law School, then was drafted and spent two years in the Army. He returned to Maine to clerk for Judge Gignoux and remained in that position for two years. Then he was offered a position at the law firm Hutchinson Pierce, where he remained at the time of this interview (now Pierce Atwood) as a trial lawyer.
Summary
Interview includes discussion of: growing up in Bangor; Holy Cross and Harvard Law School; Lancaster’s experience in the Army; clerkship with Judge Gignoux; the University of Maine Law School and the overabundance of lawyers in parts of Maine; how Lancaster came to work for Hutchinson Pierce (now Pierce Atwood); being a trial lawyer and a Maine lawyer; how Judge Gignoux was selected, his attributes, and occasions when he would sit in other locations around the country; George Mitchell’s appointment to the federal judgeship in Maine; Lancaster’s reaction to Mitchell’s appointment to Muskie’s U.S. Senate seat; Supreme Court consideration; how the practice of law has changed in Maine; the degree to which education prepares a lawyer for his or her work and the need for hands-on experience; and Lancaster’s views on lawyers advertising.