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November 12, 2009 Bangorbiz

MobilizeMaine set to go

By Aimee Thibodeau

Like all business owners, Steven Ribble, a local landscape design artist and president of Context By Design, wants to see his business succeed. But he knows that in order for his business to grow and prosper, the business community as a whole has to thrive.

That's why he became involved with MobilizeMaine, a grassroots approach to economic development that's trying to involve local people from varied backgrounds to develop an asset-based, comprehensive economic development strategy for the greater Bangor region.

"MobilizeMaine begins with an inward focus to identify our assets and then moves on to identify business models which can capitalize upon those assets," says Ribble. "Especially in times like these, we need to look to ourselves for inspiration and muster the determination to find solutions to our problems and drive them to a successful conclusion."

MobilizeMaine is a private/public/nonprofit partnership facilitated by FairPoint Communication's Connect Northern New England Community and Economic Development Initiative. The effort is facilitated and coordinated by and among the state's six economic development districts, which in the Bangor area is Eastern Maine Development Corp.

The eastern Maine group has met a few times, but expects a crowd of more than 100 at the Nov. 17 Discovery Work Session: Imagining Our Own Future, at which goals created for the region will be presented. Those who attend the event will start looking at where the state's assets are, brainstorming ideas and developing a plan for the economic future of the region. The event runs from 9 a.m. to noon at the Spectacular Event Center in Bangor.

Jen Brooks, director of economic and community development at EMDC, says Tuesday's forum will focus on mapping assets for the region through teams of attendees - and the more the merrier.

"We expect to identify 400 assets - if not more - by the session's end," she says. "So you can see, this will not be a meeting with people sitting and listening. We really want involvement."

FairPoint committed to economic development partnerships in Maine as part of its agreement when it bought Verizon's landline operation in northern New England last year. About $1.4 million was earmarked specifically for mapping assets in northern New England.

Jeff Allen, FairPoint's executive vice president for external affairs, told Mainebiz earlier this year that software developed by consulting firm ViTAL Economy in Riderwood, Md., provides a tool to identify regional assets and focus resources on commercial sectors with the best chances for success. Users can project how changing a region's economic base from a mature industry - such as pulp and papermaking - to an emerging knowledge-based sector impacts jobs, earnings, productivity and other factors. It also compares alternative strategies and provides a capital investment tool to gauge the cost for development.

"The world we live in is changing at an ever-faster rate, and if we don't keep up with it we'll be left behind, and that could lead to a declining spiral that we can't recover from," says Ribble. "We are the experts of what is here and what can be done with it. We can't expect someone else to know or care about our needs and goals, and we certainly can't expect them to know the nuances that make Maine the special place that it is."

The challenge is to get people thinking differently about the assets that already are here, and how they fit in to the world economy we're faced with today. What type of new business could thrive in Maine? How do we attract them to come here? What can existing businesses do to compete in the global market?

As a designer, Ribble hopes his ability to see things from a comprehensive perspective and develop solutions will be valuable.

"I want to continue my life in Maine and I want my family to be able to live here as they have families of their own," Ribble says. "The only way we can do that is to have a ‘quality of place,' including a healthy and secure economy, that can compete in attracting and retaining workers and businesses with other places of the world which are trying to do the same."

To register for the Nov. 17 MobilizeMaine event, contact Brooks at 942-6389 or jbrooks@emdc.org.

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