Hey Forbes, here are some businesspeople that aren't bad-mouthing Maine
When I moved to Maine last spring there were still bad feelings over a list that ran in Forbes in September 2013, “The Best States for Business and Careers,” which ranked Maine dead last. (Maine has subsequently moved up to No. 49, second-to-last, on the Forbes list.)
It was a hot topic at the MEREDA Conference in May because a speaker from Utah, which always ranks high on the annual list, talked glowingly of the Beehive State's low corporate tax rate, its youthful workforce, business-friendly regulations and so on. As anyone who was at the conference might well recall, there was plenty of hand-wringing about what Maine could do differently.
My own experience from meeting Maine business leaders is there are indeed issues around high energy costs, regulations and finding the right talent. Yet, from my perspective, there are a lot of people who have moved here for the quality of life and they wouldn't live anywhere else. There are apparently some native Mainers who feel the same way — Mainers who happen to be in their 20s.
North Yarmouth native Tyler Frank, 29, who founded Garbage to Garden, is wearing out his dress shoes at all the awards banquets where he's been honored. At the most recent, a ceremony hailing our Mainebiz NEXT winners, Frank told the audience there he doesn't understand what all the fuss is about. He finds Maine to be a good place to do business. Indeed, he's built a for-profit operation that collects household table scraps and returns them, some months later, as finished compost suitable for gardening. His subscriber list is growing and Garbage to Garden recently moved into larger quarters in Portland.
In this issue, our online editor, Dylan Martin, 25, a native of South Portland, devotes the “Inside the Notebook” column to why he stays here. He wasn't immune to the allure of big cities somewhere far from Maine borders.
“During my teenage and young adult years, big metropolitan areas like New York City, Boston and San Francisco held the true allure. Based on my perception — one that was largely driven by a love of technology and innovation — those were the places I wanted to be: large, sparkling cities that gushed with opportunity,” Dylan writes in this issue.
Yet his front-row seat editing our Daily Report, as well as recent tech company profiles he's written, have helped shift that perspective.
“Things were happening way before I started seriously paying attention, but there seems to be a sense that businesses, especially startups, are helping put Maine on the map more than ever before,” he writes.
Another NEXT winner, Kate McAleer of Rockland-based Bixby & Co., has seen things from the perspective of a 27-year-old transplant to the Pine Tree State.
In early 2013, she moved her candy company from the Hudson Valley of New York to Maine, originally at the food hub in Belfast. That situation soon soured when building's landlord unexpected closed the food hub. With a big order coming in from Whole Foods, Bixby's workspace evaporated and, at that brief instant in time, McAleer seriously considered moving back to Goshen, N.Y.
An emergency phone call, made on a Sunday to John Holden, Rockland's then-brand-new development director, saved the day.
Holden found space for Bixby near the waterfront in Rockland. Now, nearly two years later, Bixby chocolate bars are in hundreds of Whole Foods stores and Bixby continues to expand into other retail venues as well.
Forbes magazine might tell these young Mainers that the state is not a good place to do business, but they're doing it their way. Which is the Maine way. Sorry, Forbes.
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