The need for the business community and the education community to collaborate more so the state’s universities train students for the jobs most in demand by Maine employers is a constant talking point when discussing how best to support Maine’s technology clusters.
Take the biotechnology industry. The Maine Technology Institute’s recent Battelle report identifies biopharmaceuticals as one of Maine’s most promising technology clusters, but points out that it lacks a strong academic medical center to help advance more research and development. The sector employed 3,950 people in 2012, a 5.6 percent increase from 2007, with average wages of $68,313, according to the report.
All of this is to say it’s a valuable industry to support, which is why it shocked Bryan Bozsik, president of the Biosciences Association of Maine’s board, when he learned that the University of Southern Maine has proposed cutting the Applied Medical Sciences graduate program to help cut $6 million from the university’s budget gap of $16 million for the next fiscal year. USM’s board of trustees is meeting Tuesday afternoon to discuss the proposed cuts and has designated Friday as a deadline for comments on the proposals.
“It’s a little disconcerting to the community to see, number one, it’s even up for debate at the moment and, number two, a decision is being forced so quickly,” Bozsik said. “From the industry perspective it’s a very short amount of time to assess the importance the program has, the importance to the community and, assuming that it was cut, what does that leave us with?”
Bozsik, who works at Alere in Scarborough, plans to attend Tuesday’s trustee meeting and has been marshaling others in the biotech industry to voice their concern for what the elimination of this program could mean for the community.
Boszik worries that the lack of an advanced degree in biotech will both hurt companies’ abilities to attract young talent and perhaps cause those already in Maine to relocate to pursue an advanced degree in the field.
“Are (students) going to look at Boston or UNH or farther away if they want that graduate degree?” he said. “We all know when students start leaving the state for their education, especially in the sciences, there are a lot of opportunities in other parts of the country, so it makes it that much harder to get them back here.”
MAINE COMMUNITIES LEADERS IN BROADBAND INITIATIVE
Rockport and South Portland made national headlines in the past few months when each announced efforts to invest in and launch community-supported, super-fast Internet service for their residents and local businesses. Now those two Maine communities are helping lead a nationwide initiative to promote community-supported Internet networks. The Next Century Cities initiative, as it’s called, is “dedicated to ensuring the availability of next-generation broadband Internet for all communities,” according to a news release.
The initiative will hold an inaugural event on October 20 in Santa Monica, California. Rick Bates and Geoffrey Parker, Rockport’s town manager a town selectman, respectively, and Chris Dumais, information technology director for South Portland, plan to attend the event. South Portland and Rockport join 29 other inaugural partner cities that have worked to ensure their communities have access to high-speed Internet service.
CREDITORS FILE PETITION FOR INVOLUNTARY BANKRUPTCY
Old Town Fuel & Fiber, the only facility in Maine experimenting with turning wood pulp into biofuel, is at risk of being pushed into bankruptcy. Four companies that claim the pulp mill owes them money filed an involuntary petition for bankruptcy on Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Bangor.
The four creditors – CCB Inc. in Westbrook, Trico Mechanical Contractors in Pensacola, Florida; Portage Wood Products in Bangor; and Maine Woods Company in Portage – claim the mill owes them more than $1 million and want it forced into Chapter 7 bankruptcy to allow for the liquidation of assets to pay back creditors. The mill’s owner, New York-based private equity firm Patriarch Partners, ceased production at the mill indefinitely in August and furloughed 180 employees.
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