MBNA legacy paves way for future jobs

By Daniel Dunkle, Business/Enterprise Reporter

©2008 VillageSoup
(Aug 14): This article is the first in a two-part series that focuses on the economic wake left by MBNA. The credit card bank made a deep impression, socially, economically and culturally during its decade in Camden, Belfast and Rockland. When the company sold itself to Bank of America, life changed for many. This series examines the history of MBNA in the Midcoast and the legacy it has bequeathed.

Local leaders agree that MBNA changed the profile of Midcoast Maine in the larger business world and paved the way for the big businesses now coming to Belfast, Northport and Rockland.

MBNA built state-of-the-art buildings, improved infrastructure, invested in technology, contributed generously to local service organizations and trained the work force.

Its legacy can be felt along the coast helping draw athenahealth to Belfast, Boston Financial Data Services to Rockland and the Erickson Foundation to Northport, according to local business, government and economic development leaders.

"MBNA had the foresight to realize that you can locate a successful multinational business on the coast of Maine and have the labor force to meet your needs," Belfast City Manager Joseph Slocum said. "They were the pioneers and businesses are going to continue to come."

"They prepared the ground for what we have now," former Belfast Mayor Mike Hurley said. "… They super-charged our economy."

Hurley said MBNA came to Maine and changed everything.

A closer look at the present local business climate also shows that key organizations and leaders worked regionally to make sure national businesses knew what advantages the local area has to offer.

"We've had success because we went out to get it," said Penobscot Bay Regional Chamber of Commerce Chief Executive Officer Bob Hastings.

The new companies

The former MBNA buildings have been in headlines as new businesses announced they were moving in. In November 2007, athenahealth Inc. Chairman Jonathan Bush announced to more than 100 applauding business and government leaders that his firm would buy the former MBNA Phase I building in Belfast and hire 100 people its first year.

In June of this year, Boston Financial Data Services Inc. announced it was moving into the former MBNA complex on Rockland's waterfront. The company, based in Quincy, Mass., announced it would hire 100 employees this year and 250 people within two years.

The Erickson Foundation recently held its grand opening of the Point Lookout Resort and Conference Center. The company runs Erickson Retirement Communities and plans to use the former MBNA center for training employees and hosting corporate functions and conferences and as a satellite location for the Erickson School: Aging, Management and Policy at the University of Maryland.

The deal makers

Bringing these companies to the Midcoast was a lengthy process, and Hastings gives Matthew Jacobson, president and CEO of Maine & Company, much of the credit for making the deals with the three major players.

"He's a consummate deal maker," Hastings said of Jacobson. "He's tenacious, smart, straightforward. He doesn't tell you what you want to hear. He tells you what you need to hear."

Jacobson explained the private, nonprofit corporation, Maine & Company, works to market the state of Maine. It creates relationships with the location consultants for big Forbes 2000 companies that are planning expansion and casting their nets worldwide seeking new locations.

"We often don't know what company they represent during the first round of talks," he said.

Once a company has placed a Maine location on its top five list of potential sites, the consultants step back and the corporation in question works with Maine & Company directly.

"The companies then come in and visit the area," Jacobson said. "We coordinate those visits down to where they will go, who they will see, what questions they will have about everything from minimum wage to parking questions for local officials."

Jacobson said athenahealth visited more than 90 times, sometimes meeting with as many as 10 different people each visit. The talks with the company went on for more than three years, he said.

Hastings said athenahealth's Bush originally wanted the Rockland waterfront building. The first cousin of President George W. Bush, he has a family summer home on North Haven and pictured taking his boat to the former MBNA dock in Rockland.

Hastings said he told Bush the larger capacity Belfast facility was a better fit for athenahealth. The Rockland complex didn't have enough room for the expansion Bush was planning, Hastings said.

In comparison, the talks with Boston Financial took six months, but Jacobson said it helped that Boston Financial had heard about the athenahealth deal.

The work force

While the state-of-the-art facilities get much of the attention, they were not the only important factor in the equation.

"The first question is always about the work force," Jacobson said. "The fact that we have a trained work force from the MBNA days is key. If you don't have that, nothing else matters."

"Boston Financial got 250 applications right out of the gate and they were tickled with the quality of the applicants," Rockland City Manager Thomas Hall said.

Alan Hinsey of the Knox Waldo Regional Economic Development Council said the quality of the employees and their loyalty is one of the factors that has businesses from the Boston area looking at Midcoast Maine. He said the climate in Boston is such that employees are stolen away by competing companies and can use that competition to constantly leverage raises in pay.

In the Midcoast, employees trained by MBNA have been underemployed since MBNA left and are ready to return to those kinds of jobs, he said. Most of the former MBNA employees have not moved away from the area.

"We don't have an unemployment problem," Hinsey said. "We have an underemployment problem." He said this means people have been working two and three jobs to get by.

Jacobson said incoming employers can expect a low turnover rate compared to Massachusetts. "That saves companies money in training," he said.

Hall added that local workers also have low rates of absenteeism.

Competing with Boston

"We're in the 200-mile corridor around Boston and will continue to attract businesses and jobs from people who don't want to pay the heavy price of doing business in Massachusetts," Slocum said.

Hastings described the factors drawing new businesses as a three-legged stool: the first leg is a trained work force, the second is real estate at a good price and the third comes in the form of tax incentives. He added the buildings would cost these companies more in Massachusetts.

Tax incentives came in the form of Gov. John Baldacci's Pine Tree Zones. The Knox and Waldo county region is one of eight Pine Tree Development Zones in the state, according to the Knox Waldo Regional Economic Development Council website. That is the result of a regional effort.

Hastings said when he heard about the zones he was determined to get the designation. "I was concerned because if there was a place in the state that has them and we don't, we're done," he said. "We couldn't compete with those incentives."

Hastings said he worked with several towns in Knox and Waldo counties to go after the Pine Tree Zone designation and had it in place for the businesses now coming in. Camden Town Planner Jeffrey Nims said the Pine Tree group met in Camden for months to work on it. The Knox Mill and Wayfarer Marine are both in the Pine Tree Zone now, he said.

"We could compete with other states," Hastings said. "This was attractive, especially in Massachusetts."

Hinsey said it is important to protect the Midcoast's brand and to not mess it up by growing too fast or becoming too much like the places these businesses are coming from.

John Hallock, manager of public affairs and corporate communications for athenahealth, confirmed that three important factors were the trained work force, former MBNA buildings and the Pine Tree Zone incentives.

Hallock said the company is on track to meet its goal of having 100 employees in Belfast by the end of the year. The company began operations in Belfast April 7. "In the long term, we will build on that number," he said. "… We have received a super response from the community."

He added that the vast majority of employees in Belfast are locals.

But athenahealth will not be living in the shadow of the former MBNA. Hallock said the company has put its colors and brand on the building and is bringing its corporate culture to Belfast.

What about Camden?

While Belfast and Rockland have new companies coming into the former MBNA buildings expecting to hire more than 100 workers each, Camden still has a great deal of capacity in its former MBNA facilities. A number of businesses have moved into the buildings, but Hinsey said the Knox Mill has the capacity to add 300 workers to the businesses already occupying the complex.

Jacobson said his company is working on finding businesses for Camden. "Nothing is imminent," Jacobson said. "We talk up Camden every chance we get."

Nims noted that 31 condominium units are under construction on the second floor on Washington Street, and he pointed at Penobscot Bay Media as another strong business that has moved into the former MBNA facilities.

The MBNA legacy

Jacobson said athenahealth, Boston Financial and the Erickson Foundation would not have come to the Midcoast if MBNA had not paved the way.

Hastings agreed, adding that MBNA would not have come to the Midcoast in the first place if it were not for former CEO Charles Cawley. The MBNA co-founder had a summer home in Camden before bringing his company here.

"Cawley is a treasure for this state," Hastings said.

In some ways, Hastings said it is better to have multiple businesses in the former MBNA buildings spread out along the coast. "We won't face a disaster if any one company leaves," he said.

Jacobson said these businesses coming in are also having what he calls a "collateral effect."

"athenahealth and Boston Financial are hiring local people to remodel their buildings, using Maine architects and Maine craftspeople, landscapers, all Maine companies," Jacobson said. "That has a significant, measurable economic impact, even this early in the process."

"It teaches us in Maine that investment in communities in facilities pays dividends in the long term," Jacobson said.