Recap from the “Make it in America. Make it in Maine”
This summer, representatives from Baker Newman Noyes, along with more than one hundred other Maine manufacturers and service providers, attended the annual Manufacturing Summit presented by the Manufacturers Association of Maine.
This summit connected manufacturers from across the state to discuss top issues and solutions facing manufacturers in Maine. The morning kicked off with a robotics demonstration from a team of students from Falmouth and Gorham High Schools in which a robot they built stacked and organized boxes.
After the robotics demonstration, there was a business showcase which featured presentations from the following five distinct Maine manufacturers:
- Duratherm Window Corporation, located in Vassalboro, provides windows for residential, commercial and institutional customers across the country from Philips Exeter Academy Library in Exeter, New Hampshire to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California.
- FHC, located in Bowdoinham, presented about their neuroscience products which help doctors listen to how neuron receptors in the brain interact with each other. A misfiring of neuron receptors can lead to impairments such as epilepsy.
- Hodgdon Yachts, located in Boothbay, which holds the distinction as America’s oldest boat builder, gave an exciting presentation of the company’s history in Maine which concluded with the most recent boat they built, the Comanche, which recently set a record for being the fastest monohull boat ever.
- Montalvo Corporation, located in Gorham, provides web tension control knowledge and expertise. Web tension, not related to the internet at all, is the ability to control the mechanical tension in a material which is necessary to put materials in roll form without any slack.
- Saco River Dyehouse, located in Biddeford, recently opened in 2012 to provide dyeing services for a range of yarn and textile customers. Saco River Dyehouse is looking to leverage new technologies and efficiencies to bring back a once booming industry in Maine.
The business showcase did an excellent job highlighting the variety of manufacturers in Maine that are building products that are distributed both nationally and internationally.
Following the showcase, there were breakout sessions where the manufacturers and the service providers attended various workshops. Manufacturers discussed topics such as bioscience and technology, boat building and composites, electronics and wireless communication, precision manufacturing and metal products, textiles and wood and forest products. Information gathered from the breakout sessions is used to prepare formal recommendations to state economic agencies.
The summit concluded with a lunch and learn in which Constellation Energy discussed the energy landscape in Maine. As Maine has one of the highest electricity costs of states with competitive electricity providers, this lead to a very lively and insightful conversation. Attendees learned important ways to stabilize these costs and protect against price fluctuations by buying futures contracts when the prices are low.
This summit provided an informative update on the climate of manufacturing in Maine. By networking and learning from the various manufacturers and service providers present, BNN was able to take away useful knowledge which we look forward to sharing with our peers and clients.