It was the kind of day that made the reasons for wintering in South Florida perfectly clear. On the tranquil terrace of George and Tiffany Cloutier’s oceanfront home in Palm Beach, a light sea breeze mixed with the sunny sky and soothing sound of lapping ocean waves created such a sense of calm, one would never guess that this scene was just days after the couple pulled off an exquisite and elaborate wedding. On New Year’s Eve, George and Tiffany tied the knot, celebrating with true Palm Beach style at The Breakers. Theirs is a love story, which started here in Palm Beach and has grown through their commitments to each other and to the philanthropic causes they support together.
George and Tiffany met over four years ago in Palm Beach. On that night, Tiffany remembers making plans to meet with friends at Bice Ristorante on Worth Avenue. Then working as a registered PACU nurse, she was running late leaving from work that day, and by the time she arrived at the restaurant, her friends had already met George and were having drinks at the bar with him. George’s memory of when he first met Tiffany boils down to this lasting impression: “She had a great smile,” recalls George fondly. In the beginning, Tiffany admits, “I didn’t really know all that much about him. He was just this fun guy who we called whenever we were going out.” It was not until months later, when George asked her to help him host an Easter brunch, that Tiffany realized how she felt about him. “That was the day I decided I wanted to keep him for myself,” smiled Tiffany. Before she knew it, George was sweeping her off her feet as they spent their first summer together in Nantucket.
From his humble New England beginnings growing up in Maine, George is a self-made and hugely successful businessman. Tiffany, whose maiden name is Spadafora, lived in Ohio as a child, America’s heartland, and later moved to Palm Beach where she made her career as a registered nurse. Together for nearly five years now, the couple shares a down-to-earth attitude that is a breath of fresh air to the Palm Beach community, as well as a heartfelt devotion to supporting worthy causes and organizations. From the start of their relationship, Tiffany and George have worked together in planning charitable events. “It started that first summer, the summer of 2004, when George asked me to go to Nantucket with him,” says Tiffany. “I took the summer off from work, and that was the first year of the Dana-Farber Boogie on Low Beach.” For three consecutive summers, the couple hosted that event in the backyard of their summer home in Nantucket to benefit the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston, where George serves on the board of directors. In that time, George and Tiffany’s love continued to grow, and their charitable efforts for Dana-Farber raised over $1 million to support this leading research institute.
When they return to Palm Beach each winter, they start planning for the Palm Beach social season. “Usually, we hit the ground running,” says Tiffany. One certainty you can count on when attending one of the Cloutiers’ events is that it is going to be a good time. On George’s desk stands one of the bobblehead figurines which Tiffany had made in George’s likeness and gave to the groomsmen in their wedding as a party favor. Engraved on the base is a motto that has become a theme at their parties: “If you don’t have fun, it’s your fault.” George explains, “There are so many balls and good causes that you can’t forget you get a much better turnout if people have fun…so we’re very aggressive about it.” Case in point: For a Firemen’s Ball, they hired a dance troupe that dressed up like firemen and sprayed all the guests with mock-hoses. More recently, they pulled out all the stops to ensure a good time at their New Year’s Eve wedding, including indoor fireworks that shot out of the table centerpieces at midnight.
With the exception of this year, due to their wedding plans, George and Tiffany have hosted a party at their Palm Beach home each December for the Achilles Track Club for Wounded Veterans. “It has to be the most worthy cause imaginable,” says Tiffany, “when you can see these guys who fought for us and lost limbs. They’re in such good spirits, and they’d go back there in a second if they could.” She explains, “The charity is to raise money for their wheelchairs so they can race all around the country in different marathons; they’re called the Freedom Team.” This year, the couple will serve as Chairmen of the Host Committee for the American Red Cross Ball, and throughout the year, they will continue to be involved with many of their favorite causes such as Dana-Farber, American Cancer Society and Police and Firemen’s Associations. Tiffany also looks to become more involved with breast cancer and children’s causes in the future.
As founder, chairman and CEO of American Management Services, Inc., George is one of the nation’s leading small business experts. His company’s success is based on helping small and mid-sized businesses succeed, offering turn-around solutions for businesses in danger of failing. “The key in this is that it’s very implementation based,” explains George from behind the desk of his home office. “That is, we don’t just say you should change, we actually work with you shoulder to shoulder to make the change.” It is a concept he developed during his college years at Harvard. “I wrote my business school thesis—which I got a distinction plus on—on the need for management services for small and mid-sized companies,” he notes. George, who graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, was involved in starting the first computer dating service, called Operation Match. From this experience, he got his first taste of the business world and decided he liked it.
Of his career, George summarizes, “For a few years, I did very difficult situations, such as Chapter 11’s…Then in ‘86, we founded American Management Services with one employee—me—and $42,000 in capital.” With offices in Orlando, Boston and Washington, D.C., the company now has 150 full-time employees, and it has worked with roughly 6,000 businesses in over 400 industries since its inception. “Along the way, we’ve developed some notions of how to manage that are quite different than many other theories of small business and what makes it work,” states George. He is currently working on a book commissioned by Harper Collins to be published in the fall. George adds, “The book will be a little controversial and a little more ‘tough love’ than many books on how to run a business.”
Among his achievements, George was recognized by Tulane University with its Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Shortly after Katrina hit New Orleans, American Management Services made a donation to Tulane University to implement a concept that George developed, called the Small Business Success Corps. Built on a format similar to the Peace Corps, it puts recent college and MBA graduates to work in the field. “The key of the Small Business Success Corps is that you have students who want to participate and work with small businesses, and you have small businesses that desperately need momentum,” says George. Hoping to someday see the concept applied at a national level, he adds, “It’s working very well down there, and there were a lot of U.S. senators who told me the concept wouldn’t work.”
George and Tiffany Cloutier, a newlywed power couple, are an asset to the Palm Beach community and the organizations with which they work. The love that they so clearly share for each other pervades through their dedication to supporting worthy causes. And not only that, they have fun with it, and want to make sure everyone around them does, too. SA
Photographed by Gary James
