Down East woes conference focus Organizers aim to nurture business

CALAIS – The group sat with their backs to the tall windows, blue sky and St. Croix river, following the grim statistics on the board. A farmer, a print shop owner, a couple bringing a business in from out of state, all watched University of Maine professor Roger Roper trace the occasional jumps on the graph. Here, the aquaculture industry arrived, there, the blueberry growers took hold and, here, the exchange rate brought more Canadians across the bridge.

But the overall trend was down – total income earned by Washington County residents had declined more than $11 million, to $369 million, between 1990 and 2001. And an increasing share of income came from Social Security, disability and welfare, rather than from workers earning a regular wage.

Much of the message at this past weekend’s Washington County Business Conference and Marketplace came as no surprise: Things in Washington County are tough and could get tougher, and there is no quick route to creating more opportunity in what is one of the most lovely and economically challenged corners of the country.

Organizers hope the conference itself, now in its second year, can play a small but vital role in providing groundwork for that opportunity. Hosted by the University of Maine Cooperative Extension in conjunction with about 50 area sponsors, the conference offered 36 workshops aimed at boosting small-business momentum within the county.

The workshops attracted in some cases a handful, in others more than a dozen participants. Seasoned business owners picked through the lectures for any bits of information they could put to use. Others arrived with only vague ideas for some future potential business, hoping to find some support and understanding for how to make the idea real.

This year was better than last, but organizers say they could have done better.

“The business conference itself was a success,” said Mary Ann Moore, a community college computer programming instructor and the conference’s logistics coordinator. “But our exhibitors in the marketplace were probably a little disappointed that they did not get the traffic they would have liked.”

Moore said the steering committee did away with time-consuming keynote speeches after last year, opting instead to increase the workshops offered on Friday. About 120 participants preregistered for last year’s event. This year, preregistration was more than 150 by Friday morning, with at least 20 walk-ins Friday and 50 more Saturday.

Many went straight to the Washington County Community College classrooms, without taking time to visit the 58 vendors’ booths set up in St. Croix Hall. Moore said next year’s conference could potentially focus on its educational mission, allowing the marketplace to break off into a concurrent, but separately sponsored, event.

Steering committee member Louise West, co-owner of Blueberry Ford and executive director of the Machias Chamber of Commerce, said next year’s conference would also likely be earlier.

“We’ve always been known to have snowstorms every time we have a conference and we were just dying to have a weekend where there was nice weather,” she said. “But I really think the nice weather was against us.”

Erica Eberts and her husband, Robert, happened onto the conference while in town seeking information for how to relocate from Northampton, Pa., and start a business in Perry.

“We got to talk to a lot of people who relocated here,” said Erica, who said she was willing to face the harsh statistics in order to live in a town where people smiled at each other on the street and stopped to help when a car broke down.

She said the conference had been an invaluable first step.

“It answered almost every question we had about how to get a start up here,” she said, “and what we would need for a business.”