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Updated: March 24, 2025 From the Editor

Editor's note: Qualities of leadership go beyond business school coursework

By Peter Van Allen

This year’s Mainebiz Business Leaders of the Year face some daunting challenges.

Peter Van Allen, Mainebiz editor

Aside from the usual battles with labor shortages, combined with the lack of affordable housing and child care that compound the labor shortages, today’s leaders are coming to grips with rapid changes in federal funding, trade tariffs and the ever-increasing cost of doing business.

Yet the best leaders have a way of organizing the disruptive, managing the unknown and embracing change.

A passage from our profile of Ben Davis, this year’s Entrepreneur of the Year, illustrates this:

“One of my favorite quotes,” Davis says, “comes from Richard Branson, whose style of entrepreneurship I truly admire: ‘Screw it, let’s just do it.’ I love this because most people get stuck in overthinking and never take action, preventing them from discovering whether their idea is truly good or bad. The ‘paralysis of analysis’ is often the biggest killer of great ideas. Taking the leap, learning as you go and adapting quickly — that’s how real innovation happens.”

Business Leader of the Year profiles start on Page 8.

Remembering a longtime Maine leader

Speaking of leadership, this seems like an appropriate time to remember Bill Haggett, who passed away recently at age 90. Haggett led Bath Iron Works through a time of change, and later took on leadership of Pineland Farms and its related food production.

I first met Haggett about 10 years ago when he was leading Pineland Farms. He was around 80 at that point — and, from my perspective, was in his prime. He was tall, had a barrel chest and a booming voice. He asked a lot of questions and he knew how to listen, too.

Months after meeting him for the first time, I was in the cafe area of the Pineland Farms campus in New Gloucester and I heard a bellowing voice, calling me by name. It was Bill. He was having lunch with some young employees, and introduced me not only by name but with my company affiliation. It was impressive, given that I’d only met him once or twice before that.

He had a sharp mind and a strong intellectual curiosity well into his ninth decade. I never had a chance to confirm this with him, but I had heard he started paddleboarding in his 80s, which only added to my admiration.

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