MCED appoints new head
The Maine Center for Enterprise Development has welcomed a former telecom entrepreneur and venture capitalist as its new executive director. Don Gooding took over the role last week, succeeding Steve Bazinet, who has led the business incubator nonprofit for the last two and a half years.
Among Gooding's top priorities will be taking Top Gun, MCED's 15-week mentoring program for entrepreneurs, statewide. "Top Gun 2.0 this year was a great leap forward," he says. "I'm very excited about the potential for working with the innovation engineering people at [UMaine] Orono." He's also eyeing more fully integrating the center with research being conducted at the University of Southern Maine and the University of New England.
Gooding this summer took over management of USM's student business plan competition, expanding it to include students from any Maine college. He'll continue overseeing the competition in his new role, and plans to add a video pitch component next month, he says.
Bazinet will stay on through the end of November, largely to oversee Top Gun's showcase event on Nov. 18, in which the program's 11 members will pitch their new ventures to investors. He's offered to remain involved with Top Gun as he returns to working with startup companies as an interim management consultant, he says.
MCED's board has known since Bazinet took the executive director's position that his strengths lie in the quick turnarounds and shorter horizons of project management, he says. "I go into running businesses more than running programs," he says. "I'm definitely a short-termer."
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