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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

October 1, 2010

Old Town Completes Construction of Airport Business Park Road
Upgrade of infrastructure creates unique business park opportunities in Old Town

OLD TOWN – The City of Old Town has completed the $992,706 reconstruction of the Airport Road to make it more accessible for the city’s Airport Business Park. Total cost of the project from design to construction was $1,369,892. The project included new construction of sewer, water, natural gas, electricity, telephone, and telecommunications fiber along the road and to the land for the business park.

The Airport Business Park is a specialized development with an environmentally friendly design, which retains most of the natural area. It presents itself as a unique location for technology-based businesses and aviation-related businesses, especially those that develop from the unique niche created by the seaplane base, and other identified cluster businesses.

“Our goal was to construct an environmentally friendly business park, which will retain most of the natural area that will be aesthetically pleasing and as pristine as possible, working to enhance the wetland areas as an asset to development,” said City Manager Peggy Daigle. “We feel that by upgrading this area, in further enhances the unique business opportunities in the City of Old Town.”

The 2010 road and infrastructure construction project provides access to all infrastructure up to the Airport Business Park and the planned development of areas appropriate for construction with the sites ready for construction-on-demand. This park has potential of up to 9 building sites with parking, walking and driveway areas; design of lighting for the parking, driveway and walking areas; and design of sewer, water, natural gas, electrical, storm water drainage, telecommunications fiber including cable and telephone locations throughout the park site.

This land is designated as a Pine Tree Zone and it has easy access to air transportation as well as Interstate 95 via Gilman Falls Avenue. City official say that the fiber optic infrastructure will enable high-tech firms to have confidence that their demands for technology services will be delivered; and the availability of natural gas to the park will provide development with green energy options.

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Portland-based Ocean Renewable Power Co. is receiving up to $10 million in federal funds to commercialize the tidal turbine generator it's currently testing off the shore of Eastport.

The U.S. Department of Energy is giving the company an initial $2.7 million this year to advance its ocean energy project, and will provide additional matching funds over the next three years, according to a joint release from Maine's congressional delegation. ORPC has been testing a 60-kilowatt prototype of its generator in Cobscook Bay, and in August announced it had generated grid-compatible energy. The company plans to develop a 150-kW commercial generator and install it in the bay in 2011. The DOE awarded more than $37 million to hydro-energy projects, and ORPC's award was one of the largest.

In related news, the DOE also awarded Maine $4.5 million to fund energy-efficient retrofits of multi-family housing units in the state, according to a press release from the agency. The project seeks to reduce energy consumption by 25% or more in 2% of the state's 53,000 multi-family apartment buildings by 2013, with the ultimate goal of improving to 19% by 2021.

By The Mainebiz News Staff
09/10/10

The Verizon Wireless call center in Bangor, the company's only northern New England facility, is hiring 20 more employees. Human Resources Manager Jennifer Bouquot said more full-time customer service representatives are needed to meet growing demand, according to the Bangor Daily News. Six months ago, Verizon announced 40 job openings. Verizon Wireless acquired the Bangor call center in 2008 with its purchase of telecom company Unicel and now employs 160 people.

By The Mainebiz News Staff
09/10/10

In the not-so-distant future, wind turbines may rise high, miles out along the Maine coast, while beneath the waves, turbines of a different sort churn with the currents, both helping to meet the state's ever-increasing thirst for energy. This vision of a state less reliant on fossil fuels was part of a two-day event held in the Bangor area aimed at promoting increased ties with Atlantic Canada, which shares geographic, economic, energy and cultural similarities, say organizers of the event.

"We have more in common with Atlantic Canada than we do Iowa or other states," says Tanya Pereira, deputy director of economic development for the city of Brewer.
Investments on either side of the border, whether it's Maine companies setting up shop in New Brunswick or vice versa, means benefits all around, from jobs to taxes and the economic spill-offs that come with them.

For proof, trade officials like Jeffrey Bennett, who heads up the Canada Desk and Bangor Regional Office of the Maine International Trade Center, point to New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture, which reopened a shuttered processing plant in Machiasport last year and added about 100 jobs, or blueberry harvester Jasper Wyman & Son, which has operations in Prince Edward Island.

By far, Canada is Maine's largest international trading partner. Maine exports to Canada accounted for $878 million in 2008 or roughly one out of every $3 Maine did in international trade. In comparison, Maine imported $2.3 billion from Canada in 2008, with 32,250 Maine jobs being supported by U.S. trade with Canada, according to the most recent information released by the Canadian government.

Maine exports to Atlantic Canada, consisting of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, accounted for more than 40% of the state's total exports to Canada in 2008.

"We feel from an economic development perspective, working together with Atlantic Canada with their strengths in energy, with their transportation -- the port of Halifax and its shipping capabilities, for example -- we look at those things as regionally tremendous assets," Pereira says. "We would rather work with them as an entire area than compete with them."

Sponsored by the Bangor Region Development Alliance, Bangor Metro and Maine Ahead magazines, the Atlantica conference drew more than 100 people from both sides of the border. The cross-border program included an awards ceremony recognizing efforts that produce business initiatives, a political roundtable discussion and tours of innovative ventures. An energy-themed tour included stops at Old Town Fuel & Fiber, where biofuels are produced as a byproduct of the pulp-making process, and the University of Maine, where visitors saw how tidal power is being tested in miniature and how composites are being designed for use in bridges, high speed military boats and power production.

That tour attracted Tim Curry, president of Atlantica Centre for Energy, a nonprofit industry group based in Saint John, New Brunswick. Atlantica Centre's membership includes Pittsfield-based Cianbro Corp.

"Our interest is in energy in all its forms and how we can take advantage of opportunities in energy throughout the region," Curry said after a presentation about efforts by Ocean Renewable Power Co. to use tides along Maine's coast to power homes and businesses.

ORPC is looking to make Maine a national leader in tidal power. The company has successfully implemented a 60-kilowatt turbine off the coast of Eastport where the tides are considered among the best for generating power. And late next year the company expects that its pilot project will expand the number of turbines and generate enough electricity to power 1,500 homes, says John Ferland, ORPC's vice president of project development. There are long-term opportunities to develop 250 megawatts of power, enough to power more than 90,000 homes, according to information from ORPC.

"I was aware of the pilot project but this was new data for me, the nature of the trials," Curry says of the ORPC presentation. He added that a tidal test project in Nova Scotia by Nova Scotia Power -- which along with Bangor Hydro-Electric is a subsidiary of Halifax-based Emera Inc. -- has not been as successful after the turbine was damaged.
Ferland says his company has also been looking at Canada, where it has been in discussions for a year and a half with New Brunswick officials about developing tidal power. What Irving Oil Ltd's recent abrupt departure from its tidal research in the Bay of Fundy -- not far from where ORPC has been testing in Maine -- means remains largely unclear.

"It doesn't change anything for us, it just changes the players in New Brunswick," says Ferland

By Doug Kesseli
Mainebiz Contributing Writer
09/02/10

• Wind farm developer, First Wind, preparing to issue stock to raise over $300 million
• Ocean Renewable Power’s installation of working commercial scale prototype to generate electricity from tidal power
• The construction of the offshore wind laboratory at the University of Maine
• University of Maine’s research in tidal power

• The acquisition of several closed wood products plants in rural Maine by Louise Jonaitis with the intent to return them to operation.

• Montreal-based Domtar Corp. sale of its Baileyville pulp mill to Hong Kong-based investment group International Grand Investment Corp

• Marlow Yachts of Taiwan’s interest in purchasing The Boat School in Eastport to establish a yacht manufacturing facility.

• Cianbro’s contract to manufacture modules for a Brazilian-based mining company at its Brewer facility for a nickel processing operation in Newfoundland.

The University of Maine is launching a new media center that school officials say will help create jobs and strengthen the state's economy.

The New Media Innovation, Research and Development Center in Orono will support students and businesses working in the digital film, gaming and animation fields, according to a press release from UMaine. The center will have technology for training, R&D and commercialization, as well as prototyping facilities available to startups. At least eight Maine-based new media companies are involved in the project, along with UMaine's ASAP Media Services and the Foster Center for Student Innovation. Owen Smith, director of the university's Intermedia Master of Fine Arts program, is heading up the effort.

New media is a rapidly growing field that has applications in a number of industries. For example, 3-D modeling and other imaging techniques are used in the architecture and science fields, according to the release. "This is a huge area for the state of Maine that can really leverage this investment and create some unique opportunities for our students, and for really pushing and helping the economy in the state of Maine," Smith said in the release.

A $3.69 million award from the Maine Technology Institute is funding much of the project. Construction of the center is slated to begin in March, and an opening date has been set for the summer of 2012.

By The Mainebiz News Staff

For the third time in as many years, Eastern Maine Medical Center has been named one of the "Most Wired Hospitals" in the country. The designation comes as part of an annual survey by Hospitals & Health Networks magazine and the results help gauge to what degree hospitals are adopting technology and how they are using it.

This year, the 12th year the survey has run, 1,280 hospitals participated, representing about a quarter of the nation's health care facilities. Eastern Maine Medical Center was the only Maine health care institution to make the top list, although Maine Medical Center in Portland has made the top 100 list in past years. There were no Maine hospitals in the "most improved" category as have been in the past and none of Maine's hospitals were among those listed separately as the top 25 rural hospitals for use of technology.

Officials at the Bangor hospital say the survey results recognize where the hospital has been as well as where it is going.

"In the past 20 years or so we have been working at trying to build an electronic tool to share data across the system," says Dr. Ehab Hanna, assistant chief medical information officer.

Computers, including hand-held devices, are becoming ubiquitous in hospitals like EMMC. Patient and medication information is available at a few keystrokes, aiding the physicians, nurses and other health care professionals. Hanna estimates that EMMC and parent company Eastern Maine Healthcare System has spent "in the millions" to strengthen technology in the hospital.

The hospital's success has helped leverage additional funding and projects as well as recognition as a leader in implementing technology.

Earlier this year, EMHS was named the recipient of $12.75 million as part of the federal Beacon Communities program to expand the use of telemedicine and the exchange of patient information between facilities like nursing homes and primary care physician offices to the hospital, as well as between hospitals around the state.

And two years ago, EMMC was the sole recipient of the Nicholas E. Davies Organizational Award of Excellence, a top honor in the health care information technology field.

With the federal government currently providing a carrot-and-stick approach with financial incentives now and potential penalties in the future for non-compliance in meeting standards, hospitals are increasingly looking to upgrade.

"It's becoming more of an imperative for hospitals to add some of these technologies," says Matthew Weinstock, senior editor for Hospitals & Health Networks, which is a publication of the American Hospitals Association.

So what is EMMC doing at the hospital level to implement technology? For starters, it's reducing volumes of paperwork -- in some cases amounting to reams of paper -- that accompanies patients but is difficult to access by all the necessary clinicians. Now, paper is largely being replaced with laptops or computers carted around on wheels. The hospital is also test-driving the latest technological device, the iPad, to access patient information.

And in the not-so-distant future, just about everything in the hospital will come with a bar code, like the kind used on groceries in the supermarket. Expected to be rolled out in a year, the barcoding system would allow a nurse to scan a patient's bar code to determine what medications or doctor's orders are required.

Ultimately access to the electronic medical records and alert systems means fewer mistakes and better care for the patient. "It's not only safety that it provides to our patients, but it is also more efficient," Hanna says.

Despite EMMC's strides, operating in Maine may mean coming to it from a bit of a disadvantage. One-third of the hospitals on the top wired list were from rural areas, suggesting urban areas have a leg up when it comes to advancing technologies.

Mary Mayhew, vice president of government and communications for the Maine Hospital Association, agrees that Maine hospitals have state-specific issues to contend with, but Maine hospitals are still moving forward. Most have already implemented electronic health records, for example, she says.

Still, work needs to be done, even at a hospital that has a record of achieving results. "We're not where we can say, ‘We can stop, we are at 100%,'" Hanna says. "But that's our goal and I'm not stopping until we get there."

By Doug Kesseli

Mainebiz contributing writer

 ©2010 New England Business Media

BUCKSPORT - In an effort to ensure a qualified, versatile work force in the face of anticipated retirements, Verso Paper Co. recently has beefed up its staff at its two mills in Maine.

For the first time in several years, the company advertised for workers at its Maine mills in Bucksport and Jay and has hired close to 200 permanent and temporary employees going into the summer. According to Verso spokesman Bill Cohen, the company has hired 20 permanent employees and 79 temporary summer employees at the mill in Bucksport and 32 permanent and 78 temporary summer employees at its Androscoggin mill in Jay. Read More

By Rich Hewitt
Bangor Daily News Staff