LEWISTON — For 20-something entrepreneurs Chelsea Elizabeth Fournier and Donald Havener, Wednesday was campaign day.

The two competitors — finalists in an online election worth almost $100,000 in business start-up aid — shook hands, toured, talked and ate. And they imagined winning.

“At the end of the year, my life could be very different,” mused Havener in a conference room at the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council.

Either his idea to manufacture a kind of shock absorber that attaches to a ski’s bindings, or Fournier’s plan for creating a massage and fitness business that could be franchised, will win the money.

The winner will be chosen entirely by online votes at www.launchlamaine.com.

Both finalists said they see a win as a chance to make a living in the same community where they grew up.

“I want to come home,” said Havener, a Turner native who went to work in Framingham, Mass., when he couldn’t find a local job. 

The growth council wants him back, too.

Its effort — “Launch L-A!” — was created in hopes of enticing young entrepreneurs home to Lewiston-Auburn.

The council kicked off the contest last fall, asking people to apply with detailed business plans and marketing strategies. There were strings attached, though.

Applicants had to be natives of the Lewiston-Auburn area who had moved away. They had to agree to return. And they had to be under 30 years old.

“We wanted them to be young, talented and credible,” said Paul Badeau, marketing director for the growth council.

So they made the enticement strong. The winner will receive almost $100,000 worth of cash and in-kind services. Banks gave money. Accountants, lawyers and advertisers gave their services.

How many people applied?

“Fewer than a dozen,” Badeau said.

But the contest has worked so far, he said. A panel of seven local civic and business leaders cut the group down to Fournier and Havener.

Fournier, 27, is a native of Lewiston. She calls her prospective business “Lifestyles Massage — Bodywork for the Working Body.”

Too few people understand the health benefits of regular massage, she said. Yet, she admitted that she almost didn’t apply.

A corporate and intellectual property attorney with a firm in Biddeford, Fournier was looking for clients who might want to apply when she talked with her sister, who works at a southern Maine massage company.

The idea clicked.

“We’re filling a niche,” she said. Her business would sign up clients for memberships, the way gyms often do. Her staff would commit to educating the community on massage and the center promises to give a portion of its profits to local charities.

At its start, she imagines at least five employees.

“We hope to be an integral part of the community by the end of the year,” Fournier said.

Havener’s idea has been forming for several years, since he was a senior at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. For his thesis, the student engineer created something he calls the “Havener Hot Plate.”

It’s a plate that sits between a ski and its binding and absorbs some of the ski’s impacts and allows for a bit more flexibility in the binding, enough to prevent both an unplanned release of a ski from its bindings and some knee injuries.

“You hit a bump, a run, a piece of ice, and all of a sudden your binding releases,” he said. “You find yourself on one ski with greatly reduced control.”

A former racer on the Leavitt Area High School ski team in Turner, he knew people whose knees were damaged when they had fallen. The most common knee injury among skiers is a damaging of the anterior cruciate ligament, commonly known as the ACL.

Skis with his plate would stress the knee less in a fall, he said.

“I have skied in them and they work really well,” he said.

If he wins, Havener, who says he is in his “mid-20s,” plans to hire several engineers to work on the plate designs. Eventually, he imagines working on other protective gear, such as helmets.

For now, both finalists must get their votes.

Badeau said Wednesday that more than 900 people had voted online at last count. He expected visits to the site to intensify before the deadline, set for March 11.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link