Transformational opportunities highlighted at economic summit

After a year and a half that brought dramatic change to the country as a whole, Washington County is combining its time honed ability to harness its resources with new technological developments to effectively adapt to a shifting future. Such was the overall message of the Sunrise County Economic Summit: Transformational Opportunities, a three hour virtual summit held on October 19 and attended by over 60 business and organization leaders, collaborators and interested community members from the region.
Sunrise County Economic Council (SCEC) Executive Director Charles Rudelitch opened the summit with a reflection on the past 20 months and their impact on the county, including the loss of dozens of neighbors to COVID-19 and drug overdoses. With the pandemic ongoing, the county is struggling with 800 fewer workers in the civilian labor force.
Even with the environment of challenges affecting the county and well beyond, Rudelitch said it was important to not lose sight of the new and ongoing successes taking place in the area by way of innovative programs. "It's time to think about what comes next," he said.
The summit was divided into six sessions: innovations in shellfish aquaculture, Apex Wind and renewable energy, Downeast Broadband, transformational partnerships in entrepreneurship with Washington County Community College, combating the opioid epidemic with Healthy Acadia and Aroostook Mental Health Center and the Maine Spaceport planning effort.
The keynote speaker was Megan Sorby, Kingfish Maine development manager. Kingfish is a Dutch company that has developed a sustainable method of farming yellowtail kingfish and is in the process of expanding its operations to Jonesport within the next few years.

Aquaculture as a transformative opportunity
Aquaculture has the potential to be a transformative opportunity for Washington County, Sorby said, explaining that it can meet the three core requirements for long-term success in the area: environmental sustainability, economic viability and providing a living wage. For Kingfish Maine, that comes in the form of an above ground, indoor fish farming operation unlike any the county has seen in the past.
Key to the business is its namesake: yellowtail kingfish are large, predatory mackerel native to the warm waters of the southern hemisphere. The Kingfish Company has successfully created a method of farming the fish in a way that is responsible toward the environment and consumers alike.
In the Dutch province of Zeeland, Kingfish operates a fish farm alongside the Oosterschelde marine nature reserve. It draws in salt water from the reserve, raising and monitoring the fish completely on site at each step of development; wastewater is filtered to remove all contaminants and then released back to the bay.
The Zeeland fish farming operation is designed to raise fish without antibiotics or vaccines using green energy, representing a departure from standard commercial fish farming operations. When it opens in Jonesport, the roughly $110 million project will follow the same standards set by the company in the Netherlands.
Sorby shared concept images of the 10 acre Jonesport facility, showing an enclosed operation roughly the size of eight football fields with solar panels covering its roof. Inside, 36-foot diameter tanks provide a swimming area the size of four Olympic pools for the yellowtail to grow.
It will take up to three years for the Jonesport facility to be completed, at which point Kingfish envisions employing more than 100 local residents directly in growing the fish. By 2026, the operation will expand up to 155 full and part time jobs, 126 of which will be in Washington County -- representing $8 million a year in labor income for the county alone. Additionally, each Kingfish employee supports 1.2 employees in other businesses in the area, Sorby said.
Beyond employment and access to a sustainable farmable fish, Kingfish's approach is based on integrating with the community. Local service experts such as plumbers and electricians will help build and maintain the facility, while high school students around the county will learn how to grow fish via community outreach programs that create career opportunities.
Like Zeeland, Jonesport is a fishing community by tradition, and this is crucial for Kingfish's strategy of expansion. By building on existing skills and industry experience, Kingfish is creating a pathway of adaptation for the workforce while fostering a sustainable food source that is capable of being scaled up indefinitely.
For more information about Kingfish, visit www.the kingfish company.com.

Symmetrical broadband expands accessibility
Access to broadband is a defining aspect of communities of the 21st century. When existing ISPs refused to expand the infrastructure in Washington County to offer competitive broadband speeds, Calais and Baileyville took initiative to create the first municipally-owned broadband utility in the state.
After conducting engineering and feasibility studies, including a successful public information campaign that raised support for the project, the two cities invested $3.1 million in creating Downeast Broadband Utility (DBU). The goal was to build an open access dark fiber network for private ISPs to utilize and offer connectivity services to customers. Within 24 months, the network was completed, and 99% of the residents of both cities had the potential for connection.
In June 2020, DBU signed up its first customers, providing 100 MB download and upload speeds to residents in both cities for $59.95 a month through Pioneer Wireless. Having the upload speed of the connection be as fast as the download speed -- or "symmetrical broadband" -- is crucial, explained Daniel Sullivan, president of DBU, in an era where content creation is an economic path with significant potential for Washington County residents.
Along with increasing economic opportunities, broadband enables the smooth operation of telehealth, or remote healthcare services. In an area facing limited access to some health services and an aging population, telehealth is high on the list of community needs.
Importantly, the DBU network was built without raising taxes, as the municipalities agreed to "step up" by taking out loans to fund the project and taking on the risks involved themselves, Sullivan said. Another important factor for DBU was making the fiber network open access. This enables the potential for competition between ISPs, which can improve the customer's overall experience dramatically.
Nearby communities have been intensely interested in DBU's development. In Alexander, the third municipality to join the partnership, the network will be completed by the end of this year. Indian Township, Princeton, Eastport, Lubec and Cooper are each at various stages of discussion.
Outside Washington County, municipalities across Maine and as far away as Texas are wanting to know more.
Sharing the success of the project is high on the list of the DBU board, who have expressed that they will provide access to the legal documents and information required for other municipalities to develop their own utility. Sullivan said that $600,000 of the initial $3.1 million startup cost was non infrastructure related, and the resources gained with those funds are available as reference for new projects.
"DBU is a model that should be across the country," Sullivan said. He noted that the recently announced American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) will see the state receiving $128 million in funds, including $3.1 million for Washington County. Sullivan stressed that community members should attend county commissioner meetings and contact the state to urge legislators to "use it for network infrastructure." Sullivan explained that the funds could be put to closing the "middle mile" in the state and enabling rural towns to connect to the "three-ring binder" along Route 1 -- thereby giving them access to a future fiber network in their area.
DBU President Daniel Sullivan can be reached at daniel.sullivan@downeastbroadband.com with queries.

Business incubators help jump-start area entrepreneurs
In the past year, nearly 140 residents and 55 businesses of Washington County have completed a visionary entrepreneurial program stemming from a partnership between WCCC and Sunrise County Economic Council. The program -- Partners in Entrepreneurial Pathways -- effectively serves as an online crash course that enables attendees to gain a robust understanding of starting and running a business successfully.
The first part of the program is a 10 week virtual startup incubator. It includes courses like business basics and financial concepts. The second part is an 11 week virtual startup accelerator and covers business communication, market insight, strategic outlook and more.
Participants can complete one or both parts of the program, potentially receiving college credit for their efforts, or they can opt to just take a single course within it to hone their knowledge.
Among those who have participated in both parts of the program and its third offshoot, Business of Maine Lobster, is Nicholas Boulette. Boulette represents another important facet of the program in that he completed it while he was incarcerated.
WCCC is among the schools nationwide that serve as a "second chance school," meaning that individuals who have been incarcerated and are in the process of transitioning back to their communities can learn valuable skills via a Second Chance Pell Grant. As such, it works closely with local facilities to enable access to programs like Partners in Entrepreneurial Pathways.
For Boulette, who "never thought of going back to school" and "didn't have a business idea," it meant a way to start planning for a brighter future. He decided to develop a business plan for a sober house that would provide a safe place for those in need to recover from substance abuse.
The program has been invaluable for Boulette, he said. "I learned the importance of being flexible and how business plans are a living document that are always in draft mode." Part of the program is connecting participants with business owners and community leaders, many of whom lecture for the courses. Boulette remains in contact with the network he formed during the course and refers to it often as his business develops.
In tandem with the online entrepreneurial program, a new hub is being opened in Machias. The Machias Valley Center for Entrepreneurship will begin construction in 2022 and open eight to 10 months later. It will offer high speed broadband, shared office spaces and office equipment for entrepreneurs and small businesses who are in need of access. In addition, private offices will be available for lease, and a conference room will be on premises for larger meetings.

Other topics
Several other noteworthy projects were highlighted during the summit, providing a full picture of industrial and social innovation in the county.
The Maine Spaceport is a proposed plan that would see a vertical launch facility for nano satellites, or "cubesats," constructed in Maine. The state's northeast position in the country is among its bargaining chips for being the site of such a development for private companies, and Washington County is the most northeasterly in the state. Accordingly, bluShift Aerospace is scouting for islands that would serve as a host for the facility in the county.
BluShift Aerospace is a Brunswick based company that successfully launched the world's first biofuel rocket into space earlier this year. Cubesats launched from a Washington County facility could be used for communications and research.
Renewable energy is another topic at the forefront of the technological and economic conversation in Maine. Downeast Wind is a project now under way by Apex Clean Energy that will generate enough power for more than 37,000 homes in the state through a wind farm in rural western Washington County. The project will generate nearly $20 million in new revenue for both Washington and Columbia counties and create over 300 construction jobs during its development.
Opioid addiction and potentially fatal overdoses are a scourge in rural Maine, and Washington County has particularly felt the sting of loss during the pandemic due to increased isolation caused by COVID-19. Both Healthy Acadia and Aroostook Mental Health Center have received funds to combat the opioid epidemic and are approaching their role in raising support and reducing stigma with renewed vigor.
At the end of the summit, a summary of the Washington County Leadership Institute (WCLI) Alumni 2021 Think Tank was held. The think tank represented WCLI's desire to continue fostering communication and creativity among its alumni during a year when no formal institute session was held.
Three groups of alumni presented separate projects devised as potential options to improve economic opportunities in Washington County. The first was a network of mentors who would expand access to knowledge for local entrepreneurs; the second was to develop a Downeast seafood ecoventure model that would enable seasonal tourists to partake in the seafood industry and share a meal from the catch; and the third focused on heritage preservation and building awareness of recreational opportunities through outreach. The second project was voted most likely to have the largest impact by summit attendees.