David T Flanagan

David T. Flanagan, a Maine business icon who loved his home state and spent his life seeking to advance its interests by tackling diverse problems in energy delivery, higher education, government policy and nonprofit organizations, has died of complications related to pancreatic cancer. He was 74. Most widely known for his leadership at Central Maine Power, where he served as CEO 1994 to 2000, Flanagan used his finely honed business instincts, Down East demeanor and dry humor to burnish the reputation of Maine’s largest utility. Flanagan was born in Bangor in June 1947. He was the eldest of eight children. He grew up in Bangor and Hampden before moving to Portland, where he attended Deering High School. Flanagan graduated in 1969 from Harvard University, where he studied history and government. He went on to earn a master’s degree at the University of London, Kings College, then attended Boston College Law School on a scholarship, graduating in 1973. Flanagan served as an attorney in the Bureau of Public Lands in the 1970s and was involved in Maine’s landmark recovery of public lands from paper company control. He was chief counsel to former Gov. Joe Brennan in the 1980s. He was a member of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees from 1986 to 1995; chairman from 1990 to 1991, during a major recession; leader of a 2009 task force on the structure and governance of the University of Maine System; board member and chair during the 1990s and early 2000s of the American University in Bulgaria; the 12th president of University of Southern Maine in 2014; and chairman of the Board of Visitors of the Muskie School of Public Service at USM from 2008 to 2014. He served as chair of the Maine chapter of The Nature Conservancy; former chief executive and director of Preservation Management, Inc., an affordable housing management firm in South Portland; longtime advocate, along with his wife, Kaye, for the Augusta-based Children’s Center; and was a member of various boards in organizations ranging from Maine & Co., a business development corporation, to MaineGeneral Health, a healthcare system in the Kennebec Valley. He also was a partner in the Pierce Atwood law firm in Portland. In 2020, CMP’s domestic parent company, Avangrid, asked Flanagan to step out of retirement to help turn around CMP’s most recent customer service and public relations woes. He served in the role of executive chairman until August, when he dialed back to become a senior adviser and make way for a new CMP president.