Forestry cluster makes pitch to grow industry
EAST MILLINOCKET — Three members of the Aroostook Partnership’s Forest Products Industry Cluster made a pitch for growing the forest economy of the state to the Economic Development Assessment Team (EDAT), which was in northern Maine recently.
Partnership President Bob Dorsey; Dana Saucier, a forest products consultant; and Don Tardie, a retired mill manager presented to the EDAT in East Millinocket. Responding to a plea from Maine’s congressional delegation, the U.S. Department of Commerce is investigating how to boost the state’s beleaguered forest-products industry and communities that depend on it.
The department dispatched the EDAT on a three-day tour of Maine mills, forestry operations and communities suffering because of the recent spate of mill closings.
“We wanted to let the assessment team know about what is happening with the forest economy of northern Maine,” Dorsey said. “We wanted to impart some of the good things that are happening up here with investment, diversification and research and development being commercialized. But we also wanted to highlight it could be a lot better if Maine had a plan, lower energy prices and a more secure workforce. The state also has to do more to encourage investment to start a new plant or a new project.”
Dorsey said specific recommendations from the cluster members included assisting Maine by providing funds to conduct a benchmarking study to highlight where the Maine industry sits relative to other forested states and countries competition-wise, along with providing funds to hire a forest engineering consulting company to conduct geospatial forest resource inventory analysis to supplement the survey currently being used.
Finally, in light of Maine’s lack of an existing economic development platform, the group recommended providing funds to enable an outside consulting company to perform a thorough objective study and analysis of successful states who are excelling in attracting investment capital, businesses to locate in their state and have increased jobs within their state while growing their already embedded companies.
“From the feedback received following our presentation, I believe all three of us, Bob, Don and I, interacted with several of the EDAT federal representatives who were eager to provide additional information and showed interest in assisting us from their particular department standpoint,” said Saucier. “I believe our message was heard and internalized.”
“State government will be key in moving the agenda along,” added Tardie. “Absent state input and management, a big question as to who, what and how this process will be implemented exists.”
More than 30 forest products industry representatives, bankers, educators, economic and workforce development officials and others make up the Northern Forest Products Industry Cluster. The cluster was formed with the goals of increasing value added processing (current and potential), create jobs and grow the forest economy of Aroostook and Maine.
