Peter Van Allen: Continuing the legacy
“From away” is typically not a label you want to wear.
In this case, I'm going to have to own it.
As the new editor of Mainebiz, I am coming from Pennsylvania, where I was a longtime reporter at the Philadelphia Business Journal. I was born in Iowa and grew up there and on Long Island, N.Y.
Yet here's the thing: My family and I love Maine.
My earliest visit to Maine was in the early 1960s, when I was very young.
My dad was a huge L.L.Bean fan. Somewhere amid the boxes I'm packing now is a picture of him in front of an earlier L.L.Bean store in Freeport. My own memory of the store is of towering shelves crammed with hunting shirts, flannel-lined pants and the iconic Maine hunting boots.
The international company may be a giant now, but the L.L.Bean of those days appealed to the Midwesterner in my dad — the guy used to harsh winters, the man unafraid to put the chains on the car on sub-Zero mornings.
He'd wear his Bean jackets and hats until they were threadbare and my mom would send them off to Goodwill. Then he'd go down to Goodwill, buy them back and wear them for a couple more years. To my dad, L.L.Bean wasn't a company, it was a man — a man who stood behind his products.
Over the last decade of bringing my own family to Maine on vacations, summer and winter, I have seen that kind of resourcefulness in the wooden-boat builders in Brooklin, the Grain surfboard-shapers in York and in the independent Longfellow Books in downtown Portland.
Still, there's more to Maine than that.
In this issue, Senior Writer Lori Valigra looks at the abundance of new investment and national brands coming into Portland, most seemingly aimed at affluent consumers. Newcomers at The Maine Mall include a Bon-Ton women's apparel-and-accessories shop, with a Microsoft Store and the Michael Kors fashion brand coming soon. Hotel brands coming in include a Courtyard by Marriott and a Hyatt Place Portland-Old Port. New investment also includes the upscale condo project 118 on Munjoy Hill.
When you add it all up, that's a lot of new investment fueling Portland's growth — some of it from within and some from the outside, from away.
As Lori says, there's been a lot of emphasis on “craft” — craft breweries, independent restaurants and so on. But this is national brands aimed at well-heeled consumers, including baby boomers. Her story starts on the cover.
As part of this issue's focus on banking and finance, Senior Writer Jim McCarthy looks at the merger of Farm Credit of Maine with the Connecticut-based Farm Credit East. Both are consumer-owned cooperatives that are part of a nationwide Farm Credit System dating back to 1916. Their mandate from the beginning was to serve farmers, loggers and commercial fishermen. The combined firm is a dominant player in farm financing in the Northeast. In reporting the story, Jim talked to a potato farmer in Aroostook County and representatives from timber-management companies. And, yes, the institution still serves the needs of farmers, loggers and commercial fishermen.
Elsewhere in the focus section, Darren Fishell, who left Mainebiz recently for a post at the Bangor Daily News, compiled a Q&A with Bruce Wagner, Gov. Paul LePage's nominee to be CEO of Finance Authority of Maine. Wagner came on board in February and has some interesting insights.
All of this and more makes me proud to be joining Mainebiz as the editor. We have a great team and, by succeeding Carol Coultas, I am joining a news organization with a strong legacy.
My official start date is May 5, but my hope is to meet our readers (and future readers) both at Mainebiz events and individually in the very near future.
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