Maine, the Oldest State, Has a Plan for Rejuvenation
The business group FocusMaine is focusing on ag, aquaculture, and life sciences.
Maine is known for its agriculture and aquaculture industries, which FocusMaine sees as promising sectors for opportunity.
Photographer: Matt McClain/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Maine is the oldest state, with half its people age 45 and over, and it’s not because retirees are flocking there for warm winters. It’s because young people have been leaving to seek opportunity elsewhere. So there’s an urgent need to generate more jobs. A private-sector organization called FocusMaine is working on that problem. I spoke with its president, Kimberly Hamilton, and Mike Dubyak, one of its co-chairs, about the group’s decision to focus on three sectors: agriculture, aquaculture, and life sciences.
Agriculture and aquaculture are good fits because the state has abundant farmland and a long coastline, while life sciences manufacturing is a natural for southern Maine, which is close to the Boston biotech hub, FocusMaine says on its website. Maine is a major producer of potatoes, blueberries, maple syrup, and dairy products, as well as lobsters, scallops, and Atlantic salmon, but the goal is to capture more of the value through local processing and production of upscale products, Hamilton and Dubyak say.