BANGOR – Though they may feel underappreciated and isolated, Maine’s small businesses play a huge role in the state’s economic well-being.

That was the upshot of Gov. John Baldacci’s welcoming address Wednesday for participants of the Governor’s Regional Conference on Small Business and Entrepreneurship at Eastern Maine Community College, also known by its signature vanity license plate logo, “SMBIZ4ME.”

In his address, the governor cited 2005 statistics indicating that micro businesses, or those that employ from one to four people, are among the state’s economic powerhouses.

“You’re important. I know from my years in small business [the family restaurant] that sometimes we’re sort of taken for granted,” he said.

According to the 2005 statistics, Maine had 24,000 such businesses employing 138,000 people, or almost 20 percent of the state’s total work force of about 700,000.

“That’s significant – and a lot of it is done by individuals, self-employed people, sole proprietors,” Baldacci said.

The daylong conference featured networking opportunities, a small-business resource exposition, panel discussions and workshops on topics ranging from cash flow and business and human resources basics to marketing and energy savings and efficiencies, among other things.

The idea was to bring experts in areas critical to the success of small businesses together with those who run or are thinking about running a small business.

“These resources are there for you because we’re not going to be successful as a state unless you’re successful,” Baldacci said. “In this 21st century global economy, we’re all in it together.”

Wednesday’s gathering was the last in a series of four pilot conferences designed to educate and aid people running small businesses in Maine. The others served small businesses in the Auburn, York County and Washington County areas.

Daniel Williams of the University of Maine Foundation, one of the organizers, said as many as 200 Maine entrepreneurs were expected to participate in the event, which involved about 30 experts and vendors, including educational, financial and government institutions.

Matching the region’s small business community with the area experts able to assist them was a project of half the students in the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce’s 2008 leadership program, Williams said. Primary sponsors included Bangor Savings Bank, Oxford Networks and EMCC.

Besides Baldacci, major conference speakers included:

. Keynote speaker Bion Foster, who has been engaged in business development in Greater Bangor for more than three decades and has owned more than 40 companies.

The Finance Authority of Maine’s 2001 Entrepreneur of the Year, Foster, along with his wife, Dorain, recently provided a major gift to the University of Maine’s Student Innovation Center, which was renamed in their honor.

. Laurie Lachance, president and CEO of the Maine Development Foundation and formerly a Maine state economist. Lachance spoke Tuesday night during a preconference networking reception.

For a look at some of the conference’s small-business resources, visit its Web site at www.smbiz4me.com.

dgagnon@bangordailynews.net

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