Paul LePage’s life story is one of dramatic poverty, great challenges, and success. He has spent most of his life tackling one challenge after another, succeeding where others fail.
Paul was born and raised in Lewiston, Maine. The oldest son of eighteen children in an impoverished, dysfunctional family, Paul left home at the age of eleven and became homeless.
After finding himself in a hospital battered and beaten, his father arrived with a 50-cent-piece and hold him to tell the doctors he had fallen down the stairs. As he left the hospital Paul put that coin in his pocket and walked out never returning home.
Living on the streets, Paul slept anywhere he could and earned as much as he could shining shoes and doing odd jobs. It was in a horse stable where he was sleeping that he met a worker who told him the phrase “if it is to be, it is up to me.” This became Paul’s mantra to remind himself that if he worked hard, he could make it out of poverty.
At the age of thirteen two families jointly took Paul in. Eddy and Pauline Collins kept him busy washing dishes at the Theriault’s Café while he slept on their couch 3-4 nights a week. Bruce and Joan Myrick kept him busy hauling boxes working with Bruce who was a Pepsi-Cola truck driver, as he slept on their couch the other nights of the week. Later Paul worked at the Antoine Rubber Company and at a meat packing company.
Paul made it through high school and then applied to college. Getting accepted presented a new challenge. Paul was raised speaking French. For Paul, English is still his second language.
A State Representative named Peter Snowe heard about the young man in the community who was a hard worker and needed help getting into college. Peter, who was future U.S. Senator Olympia Snowe’s husband, took it upon himself to contact Husson and convince them to give Paul their entrance exam in French. They did so. He passed and earned admittance.
While attending college at Husson, Paul supported himself as a short order cook and made time to achieve the role as editor of the college newspaper. Paul LePage excelled academically and graduated with a BS in Business Administration in Finance/Accounting. Paul LePage then went on to earn an advanced college degree – an MBA, Masters in Business, from the University of Maine.
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After college, Paul went to work.
He took a job with the Chrysler car corporation and then in leadership for lumber and paper mills. He achieved success and became known as a sharp turnaround advisor who helped keep Maine companies in business and people employed. One company was famous drumstick company Vic Firth, the choice for many of music’s greatest drummers. Before his passing Vic Firth told a Maine newspaper that Paul “arrived during ‘turbulent times’ for the factory. LePage got the business back on track.”
Paul grew his expertise in manufacturing, wood products, forestry, power, furniture, food, and beverage, building supply and construction.
However, Paul is most well-known for his work as the General Manager of Marden’s stores where he built the internal infrastructure necessary to grow the regional retail chain from a handful of stores to locations throughout the entire state, stores that became a favorite of bargain hunters and shopping adventurists alike. In doing so, he proved hundreds of jobs could be created in Maine, even in the middle of a recession. Maine people everywhere learned the phrase, that “they should have bought it, when they saw it, at Marden’s.
Next to escaping a life of poverty in Lewiston, one of Paul’s greatest success stories was as Mayor of Waterville. As a Republican elected and re-elected in an overwhelmingly Democratic town, he became popular across party lines as he reduced taxes repeatedly, improve the City’s credit rating, increase the rainy day savings fund, and maintain strong support for local education – all without cutting services.
An attention to detail, focus on the big picture, and a zeal for true efficiency are the attributes he brough from business to the public sector not only at the Mayoral levels but later for the entire state of Maine.
A business leader who served his community, Paul LePage ran for Governor of Maine.
Paul LePage was sworn in as Maine Governor on Wednesday, January 5, 2011. He was later re-elected with the largest number of votes, at that time, in Maine history.
With his election Paul became Maine’s first elected Franco-American Governor. He also became the first Governor of Maine to have a family portrait including a person of color, Devon Raymond, the young black man who had come to live with Paul and Ann and their two children as they offered him a chance to earn a Maine education and graduate from college, giving a hand-up to Devon like the hand-up he had been given as a young man.
As Maine’s Governor Paul:
Dramatically lowered Maine’s unemployment rate.
Maine had a brighter future because of Governor LePage’s work.
As Maine’s first lady Ann LePage became known throughout Maine as a champion of Veterans and their families
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With our country at a crossroads, Paul is now running for Congress to lend his straight-talking voice to those who are trying to fix our government.
Paul will help secure our broken borders, support Maine jobs, grow our economy, and help lower inflation by ending wasteful spending. We need more common-sense business leaders in Washington. Paul will be part of the change.
Paul LePage for Congress | PO Box 49 | Augusta, ME 04332
(207) 558-9688
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PAID FOR BY PAUL LEPAGE FOR CONGRESS