Business forum highlights opportunities the County

“Opportunity” was a recurrent theme in the comments of six panelists at a Fall Business Forum sponsored by Momentum Aroostook Oct. 28 at the University of Maine at Presque Isle. A group of motivated Aroostook County young people connecting for career, social and community betterment, Momentum Aroostook members use their talents, skills, enthusiasm and high energy to further their own growth and career interests while seeking ways to support community needs. The business forum was one of a variety of activities to create a dialogue among young professionals.
    Rachel Rice, Momentum vice chair and UMPI media relations director, facilitated the forum, and Jason Parent of Northern Maine Community College moderated the panel.
Mike Eisensmith, economic development director for the Northern Maine Development Commission, prefaced the dialogue by summarizing a 2004 report on Aroostook Out-migration prepared by the Muskie School of Public Policy at the University of Southern Maine. Panelists echoed some of the study’s conclusions about why young people leave and stay in Aroostook County. Those who stay are drawn by family, friends and an affordable lifestyle, while others leave for career opportunities, especially in the arts, technology and scientific professions. Aroostook is more welcoming for those in health, education and social service professions.
Lara Cannon, director of the Wintergreen Arts Center and the only non-native on the panel, said she was “terrified of small towns” when she and her family moved to Presque Isle from an island off the coast of Seattle in 2005. Women at Maine Public Service, where Cannon’s husband works, took her out to lunch and continued to provide social contact for her while she grew to appreciate how “everyone worked together here,” regardless of economic status. “You have to create your own world, create your own opportunity,” she said.
The Wintergreen Arts Center is an example of her initiative to create activities for children in the community. Cannon is leading an effort to raise $100,000 for the center, which will be used to renovate its new space in the Wight Furniture building in downtown Presque Isle.
All the other panelists are Aroostook County natives who traced their paths to careers in Aroostook, most through education and work experiences elsewhere.
“Western Maine wasn’t home,” said Matt Bell, who worked in the Bethel area before returning to found Northeast Pellets in Ashland, the first pellet facility in the state. “My parents had a pellet stove,” he recalled in explaining his inspiration to build a business based on Maine’s forest resource. “I saw the opportunity,” he said, adding he employed as many as 17 people at the plant that produced up to 400 tons of pellets in a week. Named Aroostook’s 2009 Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Bell is currently rebuilding the manufacturing plant, which was destroyed by fire in March 2009.
“The county is on a precipice,” said Mariah LeMieux, a computer-aided drafting and residential construction student at Northern Maine Community College. “We have our wings. Fear is the edge of the cliff. We’re waiting for that moment to fly. I am very hopeful.” LeMieux returned to school to study drafting and construction to fulfill a need for county homes. “With better built homes, retrofitted homes, I saw I could make a difference.” She said she chose NMCC because it provided opportunities for working parents of children with special needs.
“Opportunity is not as apparent,” said Matt McHatten, senior vice president of external operations for MMG Insurance in Presque Isle, noting that organizations like the Maine Winter Sports Center have turned the county’s long winters into an asset. McHatten, an Ashland native, said he had no clue how he would use his finance degree from the University of Maine until he participated in a management training program that allowed him to live at home. He found a strong network of friends and business mentors, met his wife (who also returned to the county), and “invested in the community.” When offered a promotion that would take him out of the county, he had “a mid-life crisis at age 33,” conducted a statewide career search and decided to change from banking to an insurance business that would allow him to remain in the county. It was “the best decision,” and now he is committed to keeping more people here.
Patty Perry is passionate about career training. As manager of the Presque Isle CareerCenter, she says dislocated workers often don’t realize the transferability of their skills and she delights in the successes of those who at one time had never completed an application. “The level of skills in the county is astounding,” she said. Most of her clients share her desire to stay in Aroostook.
“I can’t imagine what would entice me to go away,” she said, in tracing the “big move” from her home in Limestone to her first job in Houlton. She graduated from the University of Maine at Fort Kent, taught in Houlton for 11 years, operated a convenience store with her husband in New Limerick for 11 years, earned a master’s degree in rehabilitative counseling from the University of Southern Maine by compressed video and worked in mental health for 10 years before taking her current position overseeing employment services to all of Aroostook County for the Maine Department of Labor.
The reverse of Perry, Nathan Berry moved north from Houlton to accept a job in financial services at Baressi Financial in Presque Isle. He is now a partner in the firm where he started as an unpaid intern during his junior year at Husson College.
“We need to do a better job of highlighting the good things going on,” he said, citing Twitter and Facebook as avenues for communicating. A past president of Leaders Encouraging Aroostook Development, Berry stays involved in regional economic development efforts so his young children will see opportunities to live and work in northern Maine. Like others on the panel, family was a strong element in his decision to remain in Aroostook.
“What is an opportunity,” asked one member of the audience. “We need to change the perception from ‘What is available to me?’ to “What can I do?’”
Momentum Aroostook offers answers to both questions as it supports young residents and urges those poised to leave or return to realize the opportunity in Aroostook County.
Part of REALIZEMaine, initiated by the Maine Development Foundation, Momentum Aroostook received statewide recognition in September for “working to shape the economic, social and recreational future of the area.” Rice, vice-chair, accepted the REALIZEMaine Champion Award at the MDF annual meeting in Portland.
Activities have included a wine tasting event, a family pumpkin ride, a fall business forum and annual Young Professionals Institutes to strengthen leadership skills. The current chairman is Tim Poitras of Chester M. Kearney, Co., and membership in the organization is free.
Membership is not limited to Aroostook County residents. Momentum’s information sheet says “to those of you ‘from away’ or former residents hoping to return and examining the County as a place to live and work, we invite you to participate and get a personal, inside look at what this region has to offer you and your family. Momentum Aroostook is a doorway to all the wonderful cultural, social, recreational and economic opportunities available.”