FORT KENT, Maine — The University of Maine at Fort Kent Board of Visitors will host its next Business Breakfast on Friday, Nov. 13 at 7:30 a.m. in the Nadeau Hall Conference Room on the UMFK campus.
The keynote speaker for the event is Kiersten Purington, president & CEO of the Aroostook Partnership, a public/private consortium of area investors committed to economic and community development.
Purington will present “The Future of Aroostook County: Attracting People, Growing Business”. She will discuss Aroostook Rising, the organization’s talent attraction and retention initiative which recently received $360,000 in federal NBRC/USDA Rural Development funding. This initiative supports a regional marketing campaign to attract talent to fill key workforce shortages, development of a regional recruitment toolkit that can be used by employers and creation of newcomer ambassador chapters to help newcomers integrate into the community. This work is designed to support our existing businesses and strengthen northern Maine’s economy.
Since her arrival, Purington has led the Aroostook Partnership through a comprehensive strategic planning process and has positioned the organization to more effectively lead initiatives in talent attraction & retention, workforce development and policy & regional advocacy.
Before joining the Partnership, Purrington worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry for
14 years supporting drug development initiatives for small and large-sized companies including
Vertex Pharmaceuticals and AstraZeneca. She holds a BA in psychology from Barnard College, a PhD in neuroscience from Rutgers University, an MBA from Boston University and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She and her husband Brent moved to the County last year and love living in northern Maine.
Tickets for the breakfast are $15 and can be purchased by credit card at https://www.umfk.edu/business-breakfast/. The deadline for registration is Wednesday, Nov. 4.
Please contact Lisa Roy at 207-834-7504 or email her at roylisa@maine.edu for more information.
