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September 27, 2004

Next: The gospel of change | Dianne Tilton Executive director, Sunrise County Economic Council, Machias

By Taylor Smith
When Dianne Tilton moved back from Concord, N.H., in 1988 to Harrington ˆ— the small town in Washington County where she grew up ˆ— she saw vacant buildings and empty lots where stores and restaurants used to be. Factories that employed many of the town's residents had been shuttered. Clusters of once-tidy houses stood in disrepair, and a new bridge on Route 1A diverted tourists from the center of town. But instead of wishing for a return to the good old days, Tilton since moving back has wanted Harrington to embrace what it has become ˆ— a bedroom community for towns such as Ellsworth and Machias. "If we have to be a bedroom community," she says, "let's be great at it."

Tilton, the executive director of the Sunrise County Economic Council, an economic development organization based in Machias, sees Harrington as a good analogy for what's happening throughout Washington County. The county's economic troubles are well documented ˆ— unemployment is nearly double the state average and the median household income of $25,869 recorded in the 2000 census was nearly $12,000 less than the Maine average. But instead of trying to revive the glory days of economic sustainability when industries like fishing, logging and manufacturing were thriving, Tilton is trying to spread the gospel of change to Washington County businesses.

As a native, Tilton, 45, has deep respect for the local culture, which she pegs as self-reliant, entrepreneurial and innovative ˆ— in short, the prototypical model of Yankee ingenuity. ("When you've got limited resources," she says, "you find ways to make it work.") But she also knows that some of those same qualities put down east business people at a disadvantage as the economy increasingly moves beyond local, state and even national borders. For example, Tilton has spoken with business owners caught in a Catch-22 of wanting to grow their businesses without wanting to take on debt. It's her job to convince them that economic development ˆ— on small and large scales ˆ— can't happen without investment.

Tilton helps other companies and organizations ready to invest in development figure out where to go for capital. She worked with one nonprofit organization in Machias that needed roughly $1 million to cover operating costs. Faced with potentially crippling interest rates offered by local banks, the organization turned to SCEC. Tilton brainstormed with her staff and the organization to find creative ways of raising the money, and ultimately helped the organization cobble together the bulk of the funds through a complex network of community development block grants, loans from the USDA Rural Utilities Service and other sources. "It's not always money that's the problem," she says. "Information and assistance are horrible things to be missing."

Tilton knows that there's no silver bullet that will solve the county's economic woes. "You're not going to take a region like Washington County, which has been suffering economically for 30 or 40 years, and turn it around in just a few years," she says. "It's just not going to happen."

But there are ways, she says, to grease the wheels of economic development in Washington County. One key is education. More than 85% of Washington County's population aged 25 and older has no college degree, and Tilton has spoken with college-aged kids who don't want to take on the financial burden of college loans. "People go out and borrow $40,000 for a new pickup truck, and that's history in five years," she says. "A college education lasts a lifetime, and [people] need to see the difference between an expense and an investment. It's a complicated situation, and I don't think our approach is going to solve every issue. But at least it's respectful of the environment that we're working in, and at least we're aware that these are issues and that we're trying to overcome them."

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