AROOSTOOK — Despite a relatively flat economic environment in the state, Aroostook County’s economy saw growth and progress in several areas this year, according to officials of a regional non-profit economic development and marketing organization.
More than $358 million was invested in major projects across The County with 185 new jobs created in the process in 2015, Robert Dorsey, president of the Aroostook Partnership for Progress, said Friday.
“It has been a pretty darn good year overall,” he said, speaking from the office of the public-private group financed by more than 20 businesses.
Since the organization started tracking economic growth in 2012, there have been about $675 million in major investments and approximately 600 new jobs created in Aroostook, Dorsey said.
The greatest growth this year came in the energy and manufacturing sectors, including at a wind farm project completed in Oakfield and modernizations finalized at a Madawaska mill.
“In manufacturing, there were a couple of companies that made major improvements to their equipment and their plants,” Dorsey said. “Twin Rivers in Madawaska finished $25 million in plant upgrades, and Smith & Wesson in Houlton installed $17 million in new machines which brought back some jobs that had been lost previously. Putting that much money into your plant is certainly not trivial. Up at Twin Rivers, when you think of all the mills that are closing, that is pretty spectacular. They continue to modernize their plant and are putting out specialty paper products that are new and innovative.”
He also said that Porvair in Caribou completed a $2 million expansion that created 20 new jobs and the Northern Maine Development Commission in Caribou secured three grants worth $2.5 million to allow for the expansion of ACME Monaco in Presque Isle.
Dorsey said The County saw equally successful growth in the energy sector, with SunEdison completing the $268 million Oakfield wind project and EDP Renewables making progress on its proposed $600 million No. 9 Mountain wind project near Bridgewater.
“The success of wind projects this year in southern and central Aroostook with the completion of the Oakfield project and now the progress on No. 9 Mountain has just been phenomenal,” he said. “Those projects bring good, high paying jobs to the area.”
Emera Maine also completed two major projects, including a Route 161 transmission line upgrade and a new $7 million transformer at its Presque Isle location, he said.
“We also made some great gains in diversified agriculture,” said Dorsey, speaking of Pineland Farms in Mars Hill, which completed an expansion. “They have 40 new jobs now and are processing cheese.”
Another area of continued growth in 2015 in The County, he said, was in hops and barley production. Dorsey added that the demand for those grains continue to grow.
At the same time, the forestry sector had a challenging year due to numerous economic factors that Dorsey said were outside of the control of the economic development group. Dorsey also said he felt Aroostook County experienced a setback when state House lawmakers in June voted to oppose a bill aimed at allowing large-scale metal mining on Bald Mountain in Aroostook County.
“That was our only major loss,” he said. “We felt that could have brought a lot of jobs to The County.”
Dorsey said that with continued growth and development in different sectors and industries, Aroostook Partnership for Progress will work to bring in even more jobs and point out to those living here that “it’s not all bad.”
“Sometimes you hear a lot of negative and not a lot of positive,” he said. “But if you look around, you will see that more jobs are opening up in the trades and in business. You don’t always have to leave to find work.”
