| Business
incubators heat up
Portland Press Herald
March 5, 2003
SANFORD,
Maine — About six months after it officially
opened, the Composite Technology Center on Commercial
Drive is beginning to show signs of life. A half-dozen
cars are parked outside most days and inside, a corner
of the looming 20,000 square-foot space has begun to
hum with human activity.
The center is one of seven Maine Applied Technology
Development Centers that have popped up in 11 locations
around the state in the past five years with grants
from the Department of Economic and Community Development.
The centers, some based at more than one location,
are designed to act as incubators for new technology-based
businesses, with the idea of creating new jobs and
economic opportunities in the state. The centers provide
both working space and shared office equipment. They
help entrepreneurs access investors and other financial
resources, business management training, and even help
them find the technology they need.
Sanford's center focuses on businesses involved in
utilizing all kinds of composites - different combinations
of materials such as wood, polymers and/or metals -
that can be used in a range of products, from construction
materials to boats or airplanes. Composite
technology is a booming sector, said William Lemos,
executive director of the Maine Composites Alliance
in Newcastle. He said there are 92 manufacturing companies
in the state that use composite materials and about
five new companies start up each year. Composite materials
are used in a growing number of products, from automobiles
to prosthetics, boats, tennis rackets, skis and golf
clubs.
Applied Thermal Sciences, Inc., a Sanford engineering
firm, moved into a corner of the center and set up
an enormous laser to develop an innovative welding
process for Navy ships.
The center has also lured Warrior Aero-Marine Inc.,
a start-up now setting up a plant in Sanford to assemble
aircraft based on the first new seaplane design in
50 years.
But there is a long way to go before the center is
fully functioning, said Richard Stanley, president
of the Sanford/Springvale Chamber of Commerce and chairman
of the center's board of directors.
"We are in the infancy stage in getting the value
of the center to the composite world," said Stanley.
The Sanford center - and a satellite center in Greenville
focused on wood-composite products - both work with
the University of Maine's Advanced Structures and Composites
Center, which develops technology for use in part by
entrepreneurs.
Philip Helgerson, head of Maine's Applied Technology
Development Centers, said the centers are in various
stages of development.
The Center for Environmental Enterprise was the first
to open five years ago in South Portland. The center
has graduated one company, Terralink Software Systems.
The company has moved to new quarters on Congress Street
in Portland and makes software for hazardous material
management.
The center is home to eight more companies, including
Holy Terra Products, which makes environmentally friendly
pest control products, and another which is developing
technology for detecting contaminates in soil and water.
The Target Technology Center in Orono focuses on information
technologies. Open for about a year, the center is
home to a company developing mapping software applications,
and another developing enhanced programming to make
the use of spectrometry more effective. The Thomas M. Teague Biotechnology Center of Maine,
in Fairfield, focuses on biotechnology. The center
has just moved into a 14,000 square-foot building.
Jackson Laboratory, in Bar Harbor, is using some of
the space for training.
Foreign
biotechnology companies are interested because this
center can help them obtain federal approvals
to sell their new drugs in the United States and Canada,
said director Clyde Dyar.
"We are talking to people in Nantes, France,
and Germany and Switzerland," he said.
The River Valley Precision Manufacturing Incubator
in Rumford is the newest center and just acquired a
65,000 square-foot building. The center has kicked
off a metal production training program.
The Maine Aquaculture Incubators in Eastport, Franklin
and Walpole are bringing along a number of companies,
including one that is developing an aquaculture medical
technology application, another that is cultivating
halibut as a commercial species and another cultivating
marine worms.
At the Sanford center, Stanley said the phone has
started to ring. There is interest from someone who
wants to work with fiberglass composites. Another company
is interested in space for an educational lab. A boat
builder has also shown interest in the space.
Stanley said there is plenty of room to grow.
"Our building is expandable," said
Stanley.
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