LEWISTON — Twin Cities business leaders and entrepreneurs said Tuesday that they are eager to accept any help the Blackstone Charitable Foundation could bring.
“A lot of parties are interested in coming to this area as a manufacturing incubator or hub, but how do we get them all together?” asked Rose Creps, a Twin Cities business coach who said she’s been trying to promote new business development in area. “So I’m really excited to see you coming up here. I will ask, help us. Help us bring the people together and let’s form something that can drive us forward.”
Representatives from the foundation called Tuesday’s meeting to announce they were expanding their Blackstone Accelerates Growth — or “BxG” in their parlance — to Lewiston-Auburn to create an innovation hub.
It’s part of a three-year initiative put together by the foundation and designed to promote innovative companies and entrepreneurship in Maine and help them work together to make themselves more successful.
“We are all familiar with all the blue ribbon commissions and reports up in Augusta,” Jess Knox, state innovation hub coordinator for the foundation, said. “This is not about a plan. This is about figuring out how to do something — something quick, something small — and seeing how it grows.”
The foundation is the charitable arm of the multinational private equity group Blackstone Group. It brought the BxG effort to Maine in 2011 and has created Innovation Hubs in Portland, Bangor and the Midcoast area, centered in Rockland.
The hubs are meant to give startup businesses and entrepreneurs what they need to grow, whether that’s financial support for key events, access to services for entrepreneurs, connections to key partner programs, training, interning opportunities or visibility in Maine and around New England.
Knox said the main effort is to help create a framework in which established business leaders and newcomers could meet with each other, sharing their enthusiasm as well as their expertise.
“We’re trying to come through and support the work that’s going on and connect people,” Knox said. “Building companies is a hard thing to do and we need to look at ways to support and showcase the work that’s going on and give companies the support they need.”
How that happens is up to the local groups. Don Gooding, executive director for the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development, said local people know what they need. Gooding’s group is partnering with Blackstone in the effort.
Hillary Flynn Dow said she’s recently started a new marketing firm. Finding help can be difficult.
“We have a lot of work that needs to be done because what’s on the street focused on economic development is very disjointed,” she said. “We have these separate factions working in the same direction, but they are not coordinated. We do not have the hub.”
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- Jess Knox, right, statewide innovation hub leader of Blackstone Accelerates Growth, talks with Fred Burgess of Regent Financial Services of Brunswick after Tuesday’s meeting at the Androscoggin Chamber of Commerce on Lisbon Street in Lewiston. The chamber brought together entrepreneurs, innovators and “doers” in the community to discuss launching an an innovation hub in the Lewiston-Auburn area.
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