Mainebiz Special Editions

V O L . X X V I N O. X V I 4 Fact Book / Doing Business in Maine T his year has been marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, the business shutdown, spiking unemployment, social unrest and a host of health and economic challenges. We will likely look back on it as a year when busi- nesses either closed, pivoted or somehow were in the right place at the right time. We will likely look back at how it changed the workforce, forcing us to work from home (if we were lucky enough to be working at all). We will likely savor the additional time we had with family, while missing the friends and loved ones we could not visit. We will likely look with introspection at the role we play in movements like Black Lives Matter, asking how we can do better or what we could do differently. Much of this issue is devoted to looking back even further, to Maine's 200 years since becoming a state in 1820. e celebration of Maine's bicentennial year has taken back seat to all of this, but it's actually a good time to measure where we are as a state. In this issue, the Mainebiz staff took a look at 200 years of ideas, innovations and products. ere are undoubt- edly 1.3 million ways to look at Maine's history — one for each resident. We might have overlooked a couple here or paid too much attention to others over there. I'll let you be the judge. At the end of the day, I'm glad to be living in Maine today. As much as I look back fondly on different peri- ods of Maine's history, we have some good momentum going. Entrepreneurs are coming up with new ideas, innovations and products every day. And Mainebiz is enjoying watching it happen. Peter Van Allen, Mainebiz editor, can be reached at pvanal l en @ mainebiz.biz or @MainebizEditor Maine fact sheet DEMOGRAPHICS Population 2018: 1.34 million State Capital: Augusta Largest City: Portland Land Area: 33,215 square miles/86,027 sq. km Length of coastline: 3,500 miles/ 5,633 km Lakes and ponds: 6,000 Forest: 17 million acres/6.9 million hec (90% forest) Location: Northeast USA, bordering Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec Same-day access to: Boston, New York, Montreal ECONOMY GDP 2016: $59.3 billion Per capita income GDP 2016: $28,052 Annual Real GDP Growth 2016: 1.1% State budget, 2018–19: $7.1 billion Exports Maine 2016: $2.875 billion Imports via Maine 2016: $3.35 billion TRANSPORTATION Interstate highways: 2 Deep-water ports: 3 International airports – scheduled service: 2 Airports with customs service: 10 Rail: 1,400 miles/2,253 km International rail facility: 1 Foreign Trade Zones: 5 KEY SECTORS Aerospace & Advanced Materials Environmental Technology Food, Beverage & Agricultural Products Hospitality & Tourism Information Technology Life Sciences Marine Construction & Technology Pulp, Paper & Wood Products Renewable Energy S O U R C E : Invest in Maine, U.S. Census, Maine.gov Q UA L I T Y O F L I F E B y P e t e r V a n A l l e n 2020 will definitely be a year for hindsight P H O T O / P E T E R VA N A L L E N P H O T O / W I L L I A M H A L L 200 200 Virginia, first ship built in North America by English colonists, built at Popham Colony's Fort St. George, the first English settlement north of Jamestown, beginning Maine's shipbuilding tradition in 1608–09. Today, an interpretation of that ship is being built by volunteers on the waterfront in Bath. In the early 1800s, cotton textile mills established Maine, situated by rivers and powered by waterwheels. The largest site is Lewiston, home to Bates Mill. As electricity became common, cotton processing moved South to be closer to the cotton fields. Searsport, home of famous sea captains, had 17 shipyards and built 200 ships in the 1800s, supplying one-tenth of the nation's merchant marine deep water captains, per-square-mile more than any other community in the nation. Maine becomes the twenty- third state of the Union on March 15, 1820, following the Missouri Compromise, which allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave-holding state and Maine as a free state. Maine had formerly been part of Massachusetts. IDEAS FOR MAINE'S BICENTENNIAL Entrepreneurs are coming up with new ideas, innovations and products every day. P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY Exchange Street, in Portland's Old Port after Black Lives Matter demonstrations in June. David Allen, owner of Allen Manufacturing Inc. in Lewiston. A shattered window at Roux & Cyr in Portland replaced by a public art mural.

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