On the road again — and learning at every stop
For the past several years, Mainebiz has hosted events around the state under the umbrella of “On the Road.”
This year, “On the Road” will make six stops. This fall we'll be in Camden and Eastport. We've already been in Portland (granted, within walking distance), Biddeford, Bangor and, most recently, Houlton, four hours' drive from our offices.
Houlton has great bones. So many towns, in Maine and across the country, are just a cluster of stores along a highway. Houlton has a real downtown, the kind a movie director might choose for an “All-American” town. There's the Gateway Bridge — a postcard-worthy, arched pedestrian bridge leading to the downtown. The downtown itself is on a plateau. Main Street is wide, the buildings are brick and substantial looking, as if the town center could weather anything. It reflects a 19th Century prosperity brought on by forest products and agriculture.
Houlton's downtown reminds me of county seats in the Midwest with a broad Main Street and substantial brick buildings. Yes, they need more retailers downtown. Yes, there are fewer people to take advantage of a downtown. Yes, a weak Canadian dollar means fewer shoppers coming across the nearby border. But the makings of a great downtown are in place.
A theme among Houlton businesspeople is that young people are leaving, saying they don't have any opportunities in Houlton. While that's a theme throughout Maine, it is certainly more pronounced in an area that starts with a smaller pool of young people and is not attracting new residents. Houlton had 6,123 people and 2,556 households in 2010, according to census data, down from 6,476 people and 2,677 households a decade earlier.
Yet Houlton maintains a vibrant business community, as we saw in evidence at our recent “On the Road” event.
Smith & Wesson, which is based in Springfield, Mass., has a plant in Houlton that has produced more than 9 million sets of handcuffs, as well as pistol parts, over the past five decades, according to the plant manager, Scott F. Allen. The plant has 120 employees and has been refurbished, including a state-of-the-art machine shop.
Not surprisingly, some businesses are finding Houlton a good place to base a business, though that business may come from elsewhere.
Kevin Brannen, who with his wife Kristi owns Spring Break Maple & Honey in Smyrna Mills, sells maple candies at L.L.Bean's flagship store in Freeport. He also stresses that, as with most maple syrup coming from Maine, much of theirs is shipped out to other states in 40-gallon barrels — in other words, to be packaged under a non-Maine brand name.
Bison Pumps, a maker of stainless steel water pumps, does 80% of its business out of state and has dealers in Australia and Japan, says David Harbison, the Houlton company's president.
Pleasant View Tree Farm owners Rob and Tammie Mulvey tell me the demand for Christmas trees convinced them to acquire a farm in Searsmont, nearly three hours south of their principal farm in Hodgdon.
Among business leaders gathered at our “On the Road” roundtable, the theme came back again and again to keeping people in Houlton.
Nancy Ketch, community development director for the town, said efforts are under way to revitalize the downtown. She also mentioned the “Aroostook Aspirations” scholarship of $7,500 per student. Stan Meader, director of economic development for the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians, said the tribe is offering IT training among other job skills. And Jon McLaughlin, executive director of the Southern Aroostook Development Corp., talked about the need for companies and jobs to “get kids to come back.”
On that note, Dana Delano of Northern Maine Development Corp. in Caribou, cited Mainebiz's own “Credits & Debits” column as an example of how northern Maine sometimes thinks differently from southern Maine.
“Things that might be a 'debit' down there might be a 'credit' here,” he said, citing the recent debate over a bill that would have allowed for mining at Bald Mountain in Aroostook. “That might mean 350 jobs here.”
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