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V O L . X X I V N O. X X V I N OV E M B E R 1 2 , 2 0 1 8 6 No ruling on CMP's $950M project before March e three-member Maine Public Utilities Commission issued an order that extends its review of Central Maine Power's $950 mil- lion New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line project into next year. e commission- ers outlined a revised schedule for testimony, technical conferences and hearings related to CMP's pro- posed 145-mile transmission line to deliver hydropower from Canada to serve customers in Massachusetts. e transmission corridor would extend from the Quebec-Maine border through western Maine to Lewiston, where it would connect with the existing electric grid and deliver 1,200 megawatts of renew- able energy generated by Hydro- Quebec to the Bay State. e new schedule postpones PUC's decision on the project until at least March 2019. N O T E W O R T H Y S T A T E W I D E The U.S. Department of Agriculture awarded $479,679 to Maine Rural Health Collaborative and $87,011 to Maine Quality Counts as part of its distance learning and telemedicine grant program. The funding will help the organizations purchase network, video-conferencing and other tele- communications equipment for rural health care facilities that specialize in addressing opioid abuse, treatment and recovery. IDEXX revenues up 11% in Q3 IDEXX Laboratories Inc., the Westbrook-based maker of veteri- nary diagnostic products, announced revenues for the year's third quarter of $545 million, an increase of 11% com- pared to the prior year period on a reported basis and 12% on an organic basis. e company said it adjusted its full-year 2018 revenue guidance to $2.205 billion to $2.215 billion, reflect- ing revenue growth of 12% to 12.5% on a reported basis and 11.5% to 12% on an organic basis. IDEXX had earn- ings per share of $1.05, a 33% increase compared to the same period a year ago. e company's 2017 revenue was $1.97 billion. Earlier this year, IDEXX was included for the first time in the Fortune 1000 list of the largest B U S I N E S S M A I N E Business news from around the state S T A T E W I D E publicly traded companies, ranking No. 961 by revenue. No other Maine company made this year's list. SaviLinx looks south for new call center SaviLinx, a call-service provider based at Brunswick Landing, plans to open a bricks-and-mortar call center in Mississippi for several hundred employ- ees. e new 43,000-square-foot facility in Hattiesburg will house permanent and seasonal employees. At present in Mississippi, SaviLinx has 260 agents working from home and adds another 550 employees on a seasonal basis. For the past four years, SaviLinx has man- aged its Mississippi workforce from a small facility in Hattiesburg. As with its site in Brunswick, SaviLinx will be based in a Historically Underutilized Business Zone. SaviLinx earned HUBZone certification in 2016, enabling it to compete for certain fed- eral contracts by hiring employees in those underserved areas. As of August, SaviLinx reported that it had 100 peo- ple in Brunswick, and planned to add another 180. SaviLinx plans to fill jobs in both Maine and Mississippi this fall, helping support a government contract, which it did not identify. WEX chairman donates $1M to USM innovation center e University of Southern Maine announced a $1 million gift from WEX Executive Chairman Michael E. Dubyak to launch a Center for Digital Science and Innovation on the Portland campus. USM President Glenn Cummings said the gift will help the university address Maine's critical work- force needs in the fields of science, tech- nology, engineering and math, starting with a new STEM program next sum- mer. "We know that over 5,000 Maine STEM jobs will be created in the next five to six years and we need to make sure there are Maine graduates ready to fill those jobs," Cummings said. e Michael E. Dubyak Center for Digital Science and Innovation, as it will be known, will be on two floors of USM's Portland Science Building. N O T E W O R T H Y S O U T H E R N Maine State Society for the Protection of Animals opened the Lawrence J. Keddy and Marilyn L. Goodreau Equine Rehabilitation Facility in Windham, a $2 million expansion project featuring a full-size indoor equine training arena together with a humane education USM launches program to strengthen economic ties with North Atlantic countries B y W i l l i a m H a l l A new international consortium of universities and businesses could expand economic and educational ties between Maine and countries such as Iceland and Norway. The Maine North Atlantic Institute will "bring together large numbers of individuals and entities, private and public, for the purpose of strengthening our relationships, in all ways, with the North Atlantic," University of Southern Maine President Glenn Cummings said at a press conference. "Our view is that of a multidisciplinary approach that is connected to the economy, to the culture and to the people of the North Atlantic. It begins to place Maine at the center of economic activity for the East Coast." In addition to USM, partners in the institute include Whole Oceans, which is developing a land-based salmon farm planned for Bucksport and the New England Ocean Cluster. The institute will serve as a hub for new collaborations as well as dozens of existing ones, according to a news release. USM has already partnered since 2015 with Reykjavik University and the University of Akureyri, both in Iceland, and the University of Tromso in Norway. The collabora- tions have included student exchanges and jointly taught courses on common industries, such as fishing, tourism and renewable energy. USM faculty are also exploring opportunities with peers at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland and the Iceland University of the Arts. The institute provides an "umbrella brand" that will allow Maine and overseas partners to better develop and market their work together, said New England Ocean Cluster co- founder and CEO Patrick Arnold. "The institute makes it easier to understand (the oppor- tunities)," Arnold said. "It's a way of hanging a shingle out." Over the next six months, the institute will be taking stock of the diverse academic and business collaborations under- way, identifying opportunities for growth, according to Arnold. "There's going to be a lot of inventorying, organizing and planning," he said. The institute may eventually include other components of the University of Maine System as well as the University of New England, according to USM. Since Icelandic shipping company Eimskip launched its U.S. operations in Portland five years ago, Maine's links to the North Atlantic region's countries have blossomed. In October, UNE signed an agreement with the University of Akureyri and Holar University College to offer a joint mas- ter's degree in ocean food systems. The deal was inked at the 2018 Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Gov. Paul LePage led a delegation of 40 Mainers. B R I E F PH OTO / C OU R TES Y OF U NI VER S I TY OF S OU TH ER N M AI NE Glenn Cummings, president of the University of Southern Maine, launched the Maine North Atlantic Institute "to expand economic and educational ties between Maine and countries such as Iceland and Norway." S O U T H E R N

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