By Bob Dorsey
2012 was an exciting year for the Aroostook Partnership for Progress and we made a great deal of progress in numerous areas — Biomass, Compressed Natural Gas, the Jobs Projection website, Mining, Wind, holding a Rail/Shipper’s improvement update, meeting the Aroostook legislature and updating the Mobilize Northern Maine 2017 Goals.
In Biomass, APP held the first ever Biomass Fair at UMPI hosting 20 vendors and five speakers from Maine and New Brunswick. The Biomass Working Group tackled and improved pellet demand, pellet home delivery, insurance coverage and Biomass financing in the span of a few short months. We also explored manufacturing options and talked with a couple companies about the possibility of building a manufacturing plant here in Aroostook.
The APP Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Working Group held numerous meetings, sponsored several companies to educate us on the nature, challenges and advantages of heating with CNG, met and worked with Mr. Ken Fletcher, the Maine State Energy Director, to ease permitting obstacles and establish safety guidelines. We also worked closely with Xtreme Natural Gas to get CNG trucked to Aroostook County for the first time in history. About 10 large companies and hospitals intend to convert to CNG and this will save many millions of dollars in heating costs as well as keep more money in the Aroostook economy.
The APP Jobs Projection Website project identified over 1,800 jobs in the next five years, was featured in newspaper articles and on WAGM, and most importantly has identified salaries, required skills, and benefits for our younger generation and people looking for new opportunities. It is the intent of this key effort to retain more junior workers as well as attract former county workers back.
Mining is a great potential industry for Aroostook County! APP testified in Augusta in support of LD-1853 which streamlined the permitting process through the Department of Environmental Protection which will hopefully pave the way for 300 to 600 new jobs in the County with an investment of more than $800 million in capital and provide an additional $45 million in GDP growth annually for our area.
Wind is another exciting area. First Wind plans to build a $400 million 50-generator site in Oakfield which will provide southern Aroostook with over $1 million a year in tax revenue and assistance as well as approximately 20 new jobs.
The Mobilize Northern Maine 2017 goals update process provided an opportunity for APP to meet and discuss workforce trends and needs with many companies in Aroostook and discover many exciting trends. First, we expect nearly 30,000 acres of farmland to become available from recovery efforts. The Forest industry appears to be picking up with the advent of more housing new starts across the nation and that will further help our woody Biomass production efforts. And Manufacturing appears to be steadily growing to the tune of over 350 new jobs are projected over the next few years. The key focus for the next five years will be to retain and grow the County’s 18 to 44 year old work force so that we can maintain a more sustainable work force to meet all the upcoming job needs.
There is much work to do to make the most of our opportunities and one key to retention appears to be the need for Education and Industry to work closer together to educate students on occupation content and the skills needed to excel in those jobs.
Bob Dorsey of Fort Fairfield is the executive director of Aroostook Partnership for Progress. He can be reached at 498-8731 or via e-mail at rdorsey@nmdc.org
