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Serious Fun
Dan Weil
03/01/2008
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George Cloutier is, as usual,
wintering in Palm Beach and planning the parties he will host with his fiancée,
Tiffany Spadafora, when they decamp to Nantucket for the summer. As anyone who
has read Robert Frank’s book Richistan will know, Cloutier does
much of his work—party planning and business consulting—from his Jacuzzi. He
sends emails to friends to alert them when he and Spadafora are about to be
featured on a TV show, and neither took great offense when a CNBC program last
summer profiled Spadafora, who is 38 years old to Cloutier’s 61, as a jewelry
addict who spends her days shopping. They kind of like publicity.
"I have wealthy friends who are so obsessed with not spending
that they don’t enjoy themselves at each stop," Cloutier says. "We like to
enjoy." Now, though, as he prepares to host a Democratic Senatorial Campaign
Committee party in March, he hopes to curry political clout from his visibility,
which, let’s face it, comes neither from being the CEO of American Management
Services—a consulting firm he founded in 1986 that specializes in helping
businesses in need of a turnaround—nor from previous business ventures.
 | GEORGE CLOUTIER and Tiffany Spadafora use their sense of fun for philanthropic endeavors such as throwing memorable fundraising parties. (Photograph by Claudia Kronenberg.) |
Next year at this time, Cloutier might be spotted in Washington as often as in Palm Beach. The man who insistently says, "I’m not
just a party guy," is now planning a lobbying attack that he will begin as soon
as he knows who is going to be around to lobby. This party guy—that’s the
festive kind of party—is, after all, a committed philanthropist, and he has a
big idea for a federal program he calls the Small Business Success Corps,
modeled after the Peace Corps, in which business students and graduates would
assist small businesses in needy areas. He came up with the idea nearly five
years ago, inspired by studies showing that 90 percent of small businesses fail
because of management problems rather than funding issues. "I felt there was no
delivery of management services to small businesses to help them grow," he says.
Then, when Hurricane Katrina hit in August 2005 and Cloutier
was pondering how he could help New Orleans, he found a way to put his plan into
action, at least on a local scale. He donated $20,000 to Tulane University that
ended up as the initial funding for IDEAcorps, a program developed by John
Elstrott, a professor at Tulane’s Freeman School of Business. Cloutier helped
with the program’s fundraising campaign, which ultimately took in more than $2
million. As a result, IDEAcorps has sent out more than 50 students to assist
small businesses in New Orleans, helping with everything from cash management to
marketing. The students have come to the program from universities throughout
the United States, including Harvard, Columbia and Stanford.
"The idea needs a national kick in the fanny, which would be
out of Washington," Cloutier maintains. But he does not think a major push is
possible under the present administration, which, he says, "isn’t a big
supporter of small business on an organized basis"—an opinion based in part on
cuts of more than 40 percent in the Small Business Administration’s budget since
2001. Cloutier might find dissenters on that point, but his political donations
have gone largely to Democrats; he has given more than $500,000 to Democratic
campaigns since 1999. Not that this particular cause has any partisan overtones.
Cloutier has begun talking with powerful senators and representatives to enlist
their support, and he hopes to involve the U.S. Conference of Mayors, but he
sees no reason to waste his efforts on lame ducks.
The Way to a Politician’s Heart
Inevitably, Cloutier will enlist support for this cause and
others by hosting parties, but anyone who asks him or Spadafora how they feel
about being the sort of people who have achieved a certain amount of fame (at
least in Palm Beach) for being somewhat boisterous gets an earful about the
serious side of having fun. In Richistan, Frank quotes Cloutier
saying that the couple goes out at least five nights a week and that Spadafora
virtually shudders over the thought of wearing the same dress to two balls.
"I told Robert there are a lot of people with a great deal more
money than us," says Cloutier, who estimates his net worth at between $50
million and $80 million, and his annual outlay for his fiancée’s wardrobe at
$250,000 to $300,000. "He said, ‘Yes, but you have more fun. That’s why you’re
in the book.’ "
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