Big Stories - The Newsmakers of 2007
By MaineBiz editorial staff
December, 2007
Yeah, the Brookings Institution study came out last year - but this year it came into its own.
Alan Caron, president and founder of GrowSmart Maine, which sponsored the 146-page report, made good on his repeated promises in 2006 to follow up on the Washington, D.C.-based think-tank's wide-ranging study n the Maine economy. In 2007, Caron launched his campaign to implement the suggestions laid out in "Charting Maine's Future," giving more than 115 speeches pushing the study and successfully lobbying Augusta lawmakers to turn the report's ideas into policy - most notably getting a $55 million R&D bond on the November ballot that voters then passed. Caron's concurrent media blitz also successfully kept the report on the minds of Mainers: Since its Sept. 2006 release, the study has appeared in more than 800 newspaper stories and editorials and been printed or downloaded around 35,000 times.
Caron's work to make sure the Brookings Institution report remains a big player in state policy won't end when the ball drops on New Year's Eve - 2007, he says, was only year two of his five-year plan to make the recommendations in "Charting Maine's Future" our reality.
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