Bordering on a turnaround | New initiatives tackle improving the economic well-being of northern Maine
Mobilize Maine, the public-private planning partnership to identify regional economic strengths, is starting to show returns in northern Maine. The initiative’s asset mapping project undertaken last fall is providing the underpinnings in two economic development projects.
The first is the newly formed Northern Border Regional Commission, a federal commission charged with improving the economic well-being of 36 counties in four states, stretching from New York to Maine. Aroostook qualifies for inclusion by dint of its median household income ($36,107 in 2008, versus the state average of $46,419) and other economic benchmarks.
Sandy Blitz, the co-chair of the federal commission and a longtime Bangor businessman, told Mainebiz he is eager to get to work. Despite having only $1.5 million of its initial $30 million request funded by Congress, Blitz sees ample opportunity.
The NBRC is directed to provide assistance in infrastructure, transportation, job training, entrepreneurship and other development benchmarks. By statute, 40% of its grants must go to transportation, infrastructure and telecommunication projects.
Blitz says he intends to model NBRC on two other federal commissions that have been operating for decades, whose success he cites. Since 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission has cut Appalachia’s poverty rate from 31% to 14%. In the past five years alone, ARC-funded infrastructure projects in its 13-state region have resulted in the creation or retention of nearly 80,000 jobs.
In its eight grant cycles, the Delta Regional Authority, which serves the lower Mississippi River area, has invested $73.3 million into 506 projects, leveraged nearly $2 billion in public and private funds and created or retained more than 20,000 jobs. “These are the kinds of results that we are looking forward to with NBRC,” says Blitz.
According to Bob Clark, executive director of the Northern Maine Development Commission, once NBRC is up and running, the priorities identified by the Mobilize Maine initiative will provide a blueprint for where investment should go.
“Mobilize Maine helped us link economic development with work force development and housing,” he says. “All of those elements together complete the circle for effective economic development.”
The Mobilize Maine plan factors into a new direction for NMDC, as well. The commission has been focusing efforts since November to develop industries with long-term sustainability and short-term impact based on existing economic strengths. The goals are twofold, explains Walt Elish, an NMDC member and president of Aroostook Partners for Progress: to grow the population of northern Maine and its per capita income. Renewable energy and information technology are the two industry clusters identified by Mobilize Maine and NMDC as likely to meet development goals within a three- to five-year timeframe, according to Elish.
Among the initiatives:
Biomass is taking center stage in the renewable energy field because the “people and resources are here,” says Elish. Although wind energy also has potential, Elish says the jobs created through biomass and its various suppliers and harvesters are greater. NMDC is backing the growth of wood pellet makers by providing loans and services and helping to integrate biomass fuel into the existing energy infrastructure by bringing stakeholders together. For instance, Elish says there has been discussion among some oil companies within NMDC about integrating biomass into their operations to diversify revenue and maximize existing assets, such as their fuel delivery systems.
Andrew Plant of the University of Maine Cooperative Extension is in the second year of a study of five different grasses that could be grown locally and converted into pellets for heating fuel. Elish says there are 100,000 acres of marginal agricultural land — mostly old potato fields — that could be planted with this renewable energy source, creating fuel for the farmers who work the land, as well as for consumers. Plant is lining up support for a feasibility study, which has drawn interest from three university professors and NMDC, says Elish.
About 2,000 people in Aroostook County already work in the IT field (including 650 accountants at the Defense Finance and Accounting Service Center in Limestone), but the impending departure of CCH Small Firm Services, the former ATX, to its home base in Georgia could whittle that number down by about 80, says Elish. He and other members of NMDC see building on an existing, strong broadband infrastructure as a way to develop northern Maine’s IT industry further, momentum that will be enhanced by the Three Ring Binder connectivity project. Clark, who also is president of the Northern Maine Finance Corp., says NMFC purchased the former MBNA buildings in Fort Kent and Presque Isle, poured $1 million into renovations and is now recruiting IT companies to move in. Elish cites Virtual Managed Solutions, a Caribou company founded in 2007 by C.B. Smith, a former ATX telecommunications engineer, as an example of the kind of local IT industry poised for growth. The company provides technology support, ranging from call center services to web hosting to data storage and backup. It is exploring moving into medical records and support, which Elish believes could potentially provide 80 to 100 new jobs.
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