Scenic Hudson Board Member
Tom is the former mayor of Tarrytown and has been on the Board of Trustees since 2005. He has lived in Tarrytown since 1984. Tom was the first African-American mayor in the history of the Village of Tarrytown. Born and raised in Brooklyn, Tom has a bachelor’s in interior architecture and a master’s in city & regional planning from Pratt Institute. He attended NYU, Harvard, and the University of Manchester, UK. Tom has extensive experience in the construction industry, including more than twenty years with AECOM Tishman Construction Corporation New York, but equally or more influential have been his 35 years of service with the US Army, 5 years as an enlisted soldier, and 30 years as an officer. He retired at the rank of Colonel from the US Army Corps of Engineers, US Army Reserves. Tom has been a NYS code enforcement officer, Commissioner of Buildings in the City of Mt. Vernon, and a military engineer officer. Butler’s move from Brooklyn to the village in 1984 was made because he was looking for a good and diverse place to raise his family. As mayor, his goals were to keep Tarrytown a diverse community, to secure affordable housing for seniors, allowing them to continue living in Tarrytown, and control development to keep Tarrytown the destination it has become. His model of dialogue was composed of three tenets: unity, understanding, and respect. Tom and his wife, Cheryl, have four children: Kimberly, Blake, Ashley, and Brent.
