At a time when so many economic signals seem to be pointing down in Maine, the announcement of a major expansion at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor is very good news. Maine has taken the right steps in encouraging research and development during the last several years, and this expansion is a good example of what having a more diverse economy can offer.

The expansion includes 200 new jobs in 80,000 square feet of facilities to be built within four years. The new jobs would push Jackson Lab’s total employment over 1,200, with most of the new work to be conducted in neurobiology and cancer. And the new work comes as Jackson Lab celebrated winning its largest grant ever, $35 million from the Nation Institutes of Health, an area of federal R&D funding that the state needs to become more aggressive in pursing. The size of this grant and a couple of preceding grants show that NIH now views Jackson Lab as a national leader in biomedical research.

Nearly as important as the work being done at Jackson Lab is what it represents to Maine. A low-income, rural state that almost entirely missed out on the huge investment in federal research at universities in the second half of the 20th century, Maine can look to Jackson Lab – or MDI Biological or the Center for Blood Research or the University of New England, etc. – as a guide for participating in this growing field.

Consider that Jackson Lab has, in the last decade, tripled its budget from $32.4 million to $97.8 million, doubled the number of employees from 550 to 1,052 and saw its level of grants jump from $12.9 million to $47.6 million. Jackson Lab is a world-class facility without the state’s help, but public support for capital improvements during the last two years has allowed it to expand even more.

The same is true for other research facilities throughout Maine, and the payback is huge: for every dollar spent on research facilities, the state get back 66 cents a year, every year, for as long as the facility exists. And because 99 percent of all revenues for these facilities come from out of state but 83 percent of those revenues are spent in Maine, they are an important way to grow Maine’s economy.

The expansion like the one at Jackson Lab is critical for solving a problem that has confronted Maine for years: how to provide opportunity for its college-educated young adults.

The expansion adds eight research groups to its campus, with a worldwide search for each group’s principle investigator but a Maine-oriented search for the 15 or so people who support each investigator. Like many businesses, Jackson Lab’s top issue is finding enough qualified people at all levels to fill its available jobs. A new joint agreement between the University of Maine and biomedical labs should help solve that problem, and provide Maine graduates with excellent careers in their home state.

That is a success all of Maine can enjoy.