At the annual "Breakfast with Charlie" event at the University of Southern Maine this morning, economist Charlie Colgan presented a sobering forecast of a recession he believes will last into 2010.

Colgan, after quipping that the financial crisis has created "boom times for the dismal science," told a crowd of some 400 people that Maine will likely not begin to recover from the recession until the third quarter of 2010, and that by the second quarter of 2012 the state can expect to return to an economy similar to that at the end of 2007. It will be a "modest, but slow recovery," Colgan said, depending on whether, in 2009, national credit markets and monetary policy recover, an effective fiscal stimulus package is implemented, consumer confidence improves and the global recession subsides.

Colgan said Maine's particular challenges include the closing of the Brunswick Naval Air Station in 2009. He said the state's opportunities include energy and environmental innovation, which he jokingly referred to as the "new bubble to believe in." Colgan's full presentation will be available later this afternoon on the USM's website.