Paul Sutherland for Board of Education

Contact information:

Paul R. Sutherland
66 Mimosa Court
Ridgefield, CT 06877

Phone: 431-9336

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Paul Sutherland grew up in Wilton, Connecticut. After spending 25 years of his adult life in Florida, he and his family moved to Ridgefield six years ago. His daughter graduated from Ridgefield High School in 2006. He has two sons in RHS, one a senior and the other a sophomore this fall. His wife, Valerie Larkin, is a licensed psychologist with practice locations in Ridgefield and Bethel.

Mr. Sutherland has been a member of the Ridgefield Democratic Town Committee since 2005, and is currently on the executive committee of the DTC. He is the coordinator of the non-partisan public policy forums that the DTC has sponsored in recent years on such topics as The Death Penalty, Ethics in Politics, and an upcoming forum entitled Education: No Child Left Behind and School Funding (re-scheduled for September 26 due to the May wind storm).

Mr. Sutherland has over 30 years of corporate financial experience, having spent over 20 years with FPL Group and its principal operating subsidiary, Florida Power and Light Company. He worked in budgeting, accounting, financial systems and corporate finance, holding positions of Director of Finance for Energy Marketing & Trading, and Assistant Treasurer of both FPL Group and its utility subsidiary.

Over the last six years, until recently retiring, he served as Senior Managing Director and Senior Advisor with Saber Partners, LLC, a small Wall Street firm providing specialized financial consulting services primarily to utility regulatory commissions.

Mr. Sutherland has been involved with education in a variety of roles over the years. While at FPL Group, he taught classes in economic decision making and quality improvement. He was a member, and then president of the D.D. Eisenhower Elementary School Advisory Council in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. He was adjunct professor of mathematics at Palm Beach Atlantic College from 2000 to 2001. After moving to Ridgefield, he taught math and science part-time for a semester at Shepaug Valley High School. From 2003 to present, he has been a literacy volunteer, teaching English to non-English speaking immigrants at Literacy Volunteers of America in Danbury.

He recently wrote a Democratic View column about the Board of Education.

Mr. Sutherland has an engineering degree from Cornell University and an MBA from the University of Chicago. He was in the Peace Corps in Brazil and speaks both Portuguese and Spanish.