Bangor conference promotes business co-ops

BANGOR – Sometimes a little cooperation can go a long way, and it is often better than going it alone.

About 80 people gathered Wednesday at the Bangor Motor Inn on Hogan Road to hear variations on this theme at the Maine Cooperative Business Development Conference.

Valarie Flanders, business co-op specialist for U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development, said Wednesday that the event was geared toward educating people about the advantages and challenges of forming business cooperatives, which generally are owned by the people they serve.

Topics discussed at the conference included:

. The organizational and financial structures of co-ops.

. How co-ops can be established in fields such as home health care, housing, arts and agriculture.

. Legal issues that co-ops frequently face.

Flanders said co-ops can be effective at meeting certain needs in rural areas where for-profit companies cannot. Because co-ops do not have the same financial standards as private companies, they can better function with tighter profit margins, she said.

“The further out you go [from urban centers], the more expensive [a service] becomes,” Flanders said. “[Cooperatives offer] a lot of opportunity for more cost-effective and cost-efficient use.”

Margaret Bau, a cooperative development specialist with USDA Rural Development in Stevens Point, Wis., said home care providers who offer certain simple services do not have to be certified and often function on their own. By joining a co-op, she said, they can make group purchases for things such as liability insurance and their services can come with quality guarantees.

Customers of such a co-op can know their care providers have passed background checks and that a backup provider is available if their regular provider calls in sick or is on vacation, Bau said.

Sky Hall, a certified nursing assistant from Hope, said he attended the conference because he is interested in starting up a home care co-op in the midcoast area. He said he learned about, and is interested in, the concept of a co-op of home care providers working for a resident-owned assisted-living facility.

“It’s been helpful to me in finding out about that,” Hall said of the conference. “I’m looking to connect with other people about it.”

Bill Blaiklock, a chicken farmer from Arrowsic, said he came to the event because he and other chicken farmers in his area want to form a co-op so they can establish a state-approved processing facility.

He said he found the conference useful in learning how to achieve that goal.

“I feel like I have a bag of tools that I haven’t sorted through yet,” Blaiklock said at the end of the event.

The conference was sponsored by USDA Rural Development, Maine Department of Agriculture, Cooperative Fund of New England, and the Cooperative Development Institute.