$30,000 grant aims to spur Katahdin manufacturing

MILLINOCKET – When Bruce McLean speaks of secondary wood products, he’s talking about things such as the kitchen cabinets and furniture made at Michael J. Brown Cabinet Makers LLC.

Everything from prefabricated houses to chairs could be created from the primary products, such as lumber and wood chips, readily available in the Katahdin region, said McLean, executive director of the Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council.

Brown Cabinet Makers’ goods “are a perfect example of that kind of secondary product,” McLean said earlier this week.

The potential for manufacturing more such goods in Katahdin has prompted the Maine Technology Institute to award a $30,000 grant to the Millinocket Area Growth and Investment Council, better known locally as MAGIC.

The grant will pay MAGIC to hire a wood products industry expert “to look at trends and the demand for wood products and how that maps against the local industry in Katahdin,” said Betsy Biemann, Maine Technology Institute’s president.

Ideally the grant will lead to a base of knowledge that can help create more small but successful enterprises like Brown Cabinet Makers, McLean said.

“We’re trying to enhance the existing manufacturers in the region and find niches for them or new businesses that can work collaboratively to meet these new markets,” he said.

Michael Brown started making cabinets and furniture in his Rush Boulevard garage in the 1990s before moving to a 3,000-square-foot shop on Bates Street about two years ago. He moved recently into a 10,700-square-foot facility on Central Avenue, has partnered with a Bangor flooring and lighting outlet, and now employs six people.

He hopes to eventually hire 12 to 20 workers – or more, if the partnership flourishes.

Maine Technology Institute’s board of directors approved MAGIC’s proposal earlier this week, Biemann said. A formal announcement of the grant award is expected next week.

“It’s a sensible plan to look at how to strengthen forest products in Katahdin,” she said. “It builds on the natural resources and industry in the region.”

A state-funded, private nonprofit organization, Maine Technology Institute offers early-stage capital and commercialization assistance for the research and development of innovative, technology-based projects that create new products, services and jobs in Maine, according to its Web site: www.mainetechnology.

com.

MAGIC is a non-profit, quasi-public economic development agency serving East Millinocket, Medway and Millinocket.

The $30,000 grant will be combined with $22,500 in funding received from the Northern Forest Partnership program, for the same purpose, McLean said. About $8,000 will go to MAGIC for administrative costs.

MAGIC is interviewing several wood products industry experts and will select one within a few weeks, McLean said.

The Northern Forest Partnership Program awards grants to innovative, community-generated projects that strengthen local forest-based economies, communities and the environment in the Northern Forest, according to its Web site: www.northernforest.

org.

The Northern Forest Partnership Program has awarded grants recently to 19 projects in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.