FAIRFIELD – A plan hatched several years ago to create a biotechnology business incubator in central Maine came to fruition Friday with the grand opening of the Thomas M. Teague Biotechnology Center of Maine.

Located on 20 acres off Interstate 95 in Fairfield, the new center was celebrated locally and internationally. Three hundred people from Maine, several other states and Canada attended the event.

“We are celebrating more than the completion of a building,” said Clyde Dyar, interim director of the center. “We are celebrating a dream come true, of bringing high-tech business development and jobs to central Maine while building cooperation and partnerships across borders.”

State Rep. Paul Tessier, D-Fairfield, was master of ceremonies for the event. Tessier is president of both the International Northeast Biotechnology Corridor and the Fairfield Economic Development Corp.

“Opening the doors of this center has placed Fairfield in the midst of a rapidly growing research and development economy in Maine,” said Tessier. “We now have an opportunity to bring 21st century jobs to central Maine and to expand our research and development base.”

The Teague Biotechnology Center is one of seven applied technology centers in Maine that received state funding. A bill sponsored by Tessier obtained $5.5 million to help start high-technology business incubators in the state.

The center’s educational and training mission is reflected in the participation and leadership of Dr. Mary Schwanke, president of the Thomas M. Teague Biotechnology Center; Dr. Barbara Woodlee, president of Kennebec Valley Technical College; and Dr. James Kenney, dean of science and humanities at Husson College.

“What I am most excited about is that there will be a shift in Maine to biotechnology and biomedical research,” said Schwanke, who also is a professor of biology at the University of Maine at Farmington. “Rather than send our students to Texas or the Midwest to further their education and work in these fields, we will be able to tell them that there will be opportunities for them here in Maine.”

Speakers also included Francois Lebrun of the Quebec Delegation and Mario Deslongchamps, director of BioMed D?veloppement at Sherbrooke Biomedical Park, a private, nonprofit Quebec organization. Part of the agenda included signing a memorandum of agreement between BioMed and the Teague Biotechnology Center.

The mission of the Quebec Delegation, a government office, is to set up economic, political, cultural, academic and tourism exchanges among Quebec and the six New England states.

“The economic relationship between Quebec and New England is more and more dedicated to partnerships in the high-technology sectors. The agreement signed today moves toward that goal and is a step forward in the development of a bi-national biotechnology corridor in the Northeast,” said Lebrun.

The agreement fosters cross-border cooperation in the commercialization of biotechnology and includes eight joint obligations, including information sharing, cooperation in business and marketing development, and seeking venture capital to assisting students in discovering careers of service in biotechnology and the health sciences. Discussions to explore a cooperative relationship started a year ago, according to Deslongchamps.

Other speakers included Warren Cook, CEO of The Jackson Laboratory, and representatives from Gov. Angus King’s office, the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development, the Maine Science & Technology Foundation, and the offices of U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and U.S. Rep. John Baldacci.

The center is named after the late Thomas Teague, a local state senator, farmer and businessman who offered property he owned as a building site for the project. The Teague family will donate the property to the nonprofit Fairfield Economic Development Corp. after certain conditions are met, such as final paving of the road to the center, according to Dyar. Members of the Teague family were present at the ceremony and expressed their support for the center and the value to humanity of the work to be conducted there.

The center’s first corporate tenant is The Jackson Laboratory, the world’s largest mammalian research facility, based in Bar Harbor. The Jackson Laboratory will offer a 120-hour training program concentrating on small laboratory animal science practices.

With more than 1,200 employees, the laboratory is the largest employer in Hancock County and is growing due to growth in the pharmaceutical industry as well as the National Institutes of Health research budget, according to Cook. The laboratory hires about 100 people each year and promotes 100 each year into more responsible jobs, he said.

In a cooperative program between the laboratory and Kennebec Valley Technical College in Fairfield, the laboratory’s new Fairfield Education Center at the Teague Biotechnology Center will train biological technicians who have a two- or four-year degree in biological sciences. Upon successful completion of the program, students will receive a certificate and an opportunity to be considered for employment at The Jackson Laboratory.

For more information about the Thomas M. Teague Biotechnology Center, contact Dyar at 453-4283.