INDIAN ISLAND – Penobscot Indian Nation has received $32,000 in federal grant money to develop a long-term economic development strategy with a focus on creating a corporation for the tribe.

The U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration last week awarded the funding, which the tribe intends to use to create an economic plan that would span the next one to five years, Craig Sanborn, Indian Island Housing Authority director, said Monday. The tribe’s economic development official retired last year, and Sanborn has been serving as interim economic developer ever since.

A main part of the tribe’s economic development plan is to form a corporation that would allow them to be more competitive in the business market, Sanborn said.

“Historically, government is not designed to compete in the business world,” he said. “By setting this up, what they hope to do is create an entity that’s lean and fast and will be able to compete.”

The Economic Development Administration was established to work with states and localities to generate new jobs, retain existing jobs, and stimulate industrial and commercial growth in economically distressed areas and regions of the United States.

“Long-term economic planning is necessary for communities to attract business and ensure that they remain economically vibrant,” U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said last week in a joint statement regarding the grant funding.

The tribe has continued to move forward with developing the corporation, and Chief James Sappier and the Tribal Council have adopted a charter of incorporation for a Section 17 corporation. The U.S. secretary of the interior approves the charter.

“The corporation is a federal entity that is a separate legal entity from the tribe, but it is the tribe, as the tribe, doing economic development in a corporate mode,” Sanborn said.

The charter was filed at the end of March, but takes about six months to go through the federal approval process.

The corporation also will have an 11-member board, which will be made up of tribal members appointed by the Tribal Council.

The board’s first task will be to develop bylaws, elect officers, and develop set values and a vision for the corporation and make sure that those values are compatible with tribal culture, Sanborn noted.

“The advisory board is where the tribe hopes to bring on prominent nontribal members from the surrounding communities that bring special talents, be it law, finance, business, [or] banking,” he said.

Gov. John Baldacci has been an integral part of obtaining this particular grant, Sanborn said.

“This award supports my vision for Maine,” Baldacci said Monday in a prepared statement. “Included in that vision is the increased opportunity for good paying jobs with benefits. Essential to that effort is sound economic planning.”

“The governor’s office is looking [for the tribe] to partner with other Maine-based businesses,” he said. “With this venture, specifically manufacturing.”

The idea would be for Maine manufacturers to partner with the tribe to compete for federal contracts.

“Hopefully we land jobs that will benefit Maine manufacturers and will also benefit the tribe,” Sanborn said.

Although this would be the first such corporation in Maine, a Harvard University research group has been studying economic development on tribal lands for almost a generation and has found this to be a successful model.

“Everybody says this is the way to do it, and so the tribe is going down that route and we hope that it will prove to be successful,” Sanborn said.