(Editor’s Note: This is the last installment in a two-part series about the evolution of the North Country’s economy. The first installment appeared in the August issue.)
There were 1,207 private-sector jobs in Colebrook at the end of 2012. Then Rick Tillotson opened Tillotson Performance Polymers in January 2013, inching up the count by 10. That may not seem like much, but it’s nearly 1 percent of the jobs in town, demonstrating how crucial it is to this rural area.
Creating those jobs is no easy task. While the southern part of the state has easy access to highways, a large pool of potential employees, broadband and capital, those things are harder to come by in the North Country.
Area leaders applaud efforts now underway to create a regional backbone of support to encourage job development, but many say much work is still needed.
“The experience of living and working in a rural environment is all about jobs, jobs and more jobs,” says Kathy Eneguess, president of White Mountains Community College in Berlin. She says that focus is needed in light of the challenges faced by the North Country—an aging community transitioning from a paper manufacturing economy to one that is diversified. And, of course, there’s also the need to ensure people have the right skills for the jobs available.
Some infrastructure is in place, like the 18-month-old Business Services North, a collaboration to provide one-stop business assistance. Or the $23 million in New Markets Tax Credits through CEI Capital Management for two projects, one to keep forests community-owned and one to help fund the transformation of the Berlin pulp mill into a biomass plant. Other efforts afoot include Ride the Wilds, a network of about 1,000 miles of ATV trails in the North Country that opened this summer and creates more opportunities for tourism and business development. There’s also a University of NH grant funded by stimulus money and matching funds that will extend broadband to the far reaches of the North Country, including Colebrook to the Canadian border.
With the right infrastructure and investments, regional leaders say there is great potential, noting that Coos County sits squarely between Maine and Vermont, making it a captive audience for business and commerce moving between the three states. “Coos is really at a pivotal crossroads for wood flows, for tourism, for really any economic traffic flow, and there is a unique opportunity for capturing some of that activity,” says Rob Riley, president of the Northern Forest Center, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the forests and rural communities in Maine, NH, New York and Vermont. “A lot of efforts are underway. The challenge is the pace at which they are deployed in the context of the time at which the rest of the world has them.”
Investing in Infrastructure
Many North Country communities need more or better infrastructure to grow, though what is needed varies. For Dave Fuller of Fuller’s Sugarhouse in Lancaster, bad roads make it hard to transport materials, forcing him to enlist Executive Councilor Ray Burton to help get roads reclassified so he can send his trucks on them. While the state has a 10-year transportation plan to update roads, it has long been underfunded, leaving many roads and bridges in need of repair.
Route 2, the main highway across the North Country stretching 37 miles between Lancaster and Randolph, could use information kiosks or other markings to help promote tourism, says Riley of the Northern Forest Center.
And roads aren’t the only infrastructure issue. There are 20 miles of the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Rail line in the region (17 miles in NH and three miles in Vermont), but Jeff Hayes of the North Country Council says the NH/Vermont portion has less capacity than in neighboring states, which creates a bottleneck for train traffic. The 20-mile stretch can hold 263,000 pounds, while the rest of the line meets the North American standard of 286,000, which “in terms of attracting new business on the line really puts you behind the eight ball,” says Mark Sanborn, federal liaison for the NH Department of Transportation. Hayes agrees, saying, “It’s making it less economical to use rail throughout Northern New England.”
The line runs 260 miles in total from Auburn, Maine to Montreal, and 240 miles have been upgraded. Upgrading the remaining 20 miles will cost about $12 million to $13 million, Sanborn says. The state has applied for and been denied federal grants for the upgrade three times. The state recently applied again, this time offering to kick in $450,000, with the rail company matching 40 percent of the project’s total cost, and is waiting for a decision.
Meanwhile, Berlin has been working to get rid of an abundance of empty buildings. A study in 1999 found the city had an excess of 500 housing units, many uninhabitable. Half of them have now been demolished. Berlin once boasted a population of 20,000, but is now home to 10,000. City Manager Pam LaFlamme says the city has spent more than $8 million in grants and tax dollars to demolish and renovate city buildings during the last six years. “We still have a ways to go, but we’ve made a good dent in it,” LaFlamme says. “Most grants are not for demolition; they are for rehabilitation. So when a grant is available, we have to stretch every dollar.” Berlin Main Street Director Sylvia Poulin says the city is also looking to bring a hotel to Main Street in Berlin, as there are none.
The Northern Forest Center helped address the costs of heating some of the older homes that are inhabited. Its Model Neighborhood Project, started 2.5 years ago, has installed wood pellet boilers in 36 homes and three nonprofit facilities that created an average fuel savings of 40 to 50 percent for homeowners and facility managers, and opened new markets for repair companies and low-grade wood.
In Colebrook, it’s broadband, not buildings, that is the bigger challenge. Kheops International, which sells $5 million in spiritual awareness products and “meaningful gifts” annually, is still waiting for a planned broadband expansion. While Kheops could have secured its own broadband line for the business, the cost was prohibitive, says President Marie Josee Vaillant, so the company (which does brisk online business) is still waiting for a faster connection.
The broadband expansion, scheduled to be completed by December, is part of a $66 million project to lay 750 miles statewide of middle-mile fiber (which connects to local networks). Of that total, 320 miles will be in Coos and Grafton Counties, and towns in the northern part of the Lakes Region. The project will also connect 114 businesses, including health care organizations and libraries, directly to the network, says Scott Valcourt of the University of NH, which oversees the grant. Most businesses and homes will access the fiber using antennas that connect to signals on towers, which serve as a bridge between the fiber lines and the homes and businesses.
It’s a Team Effort
Trying to bring all the disparate communities of the North Country together on economic development is an ongoing effort, and one that regional leaders say is key to future prosperity.
North Country businesses used to complain that they had trouble accessing business resources easily, so White Mountains Community College, Northern Community Investment Corp. (NCIC), and the NH Small Business Development Center joined forces to create Business Services North 18 months ago, a one-stop 800 number directing business to various resources. In the spring, Business Services North launched a website, www.ncic.org/bizwiz, to increase accessibility. The project has helped create 83 new jobs, start 21 new businesses and infuse $1.14 million into the local economy. It also provides educational workshops and technical assistance grants through its Launch Box program.
Another joint effort that is bearing fruit is NH Grand, which markets Coos County by highlighting tourism opportunities. That includes the previously mentioned Ride the Wilds. Regional leaders say it is one of the largest networks nationally. “A lot of people believe it’s going to spark a huge tourist industry,” says Dick Huot of the Berlin Industrial Development Corp. and Park Authority. Berlin Main Street’s Poulin says that trail system, combined with planned campground additions at Jericho State Park in Berlin, could attract a significant number of tourists.
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs
In the end, all these efforts are about creating jobs. That’s the main reason Rick Tillotson launched Tillotson Performance Polymers in a 100,000-square-foot building in the Colebrook Industrial Park earlier this year. Tillotson purchased the equipment from the now closed Healthco International, which was housed in The Balsams hotel in Dixville and made latex gloves and balloons with machines built by his father. Tillotson Performance Polymers already sold 750,000 small plastic eyedroppers and is in the process of putting back together the balloon machine. Tillotson received funding assistance from the Workforce Investment Act to hire 10 previously unemployed local workers. “If you take the fact that there was equipment that could make product, people that knew how to run the equipment, and demand for the product, it really was a no brainer,” he says. “Ten employees is a relatively small effect on a big problem, but we’re going to have a larger effect as we grow. We’ve got some good examples of success and I’m trying to be one as well.”
The state, too, has worked to spur jobs in the North Country, though results are mixed. The NH Job Training Fund has provided $5.9 million in matching grants statewide as of June 2013, including about $135,000 to North Country employers. Some job training funds went to now-closed businesses, including Brown Street Furniture in Whitefield. Other recipients include Gorham Paper and Tissue in Gorham, P.J. Noyes in Lancaster and Tender Corporation in Littleton. Kheops also accessed those funds (it used them for customer service training) as well as the Coos County Job Creation Tax Credit. That program provides a tax credit for hiring new full-time employees making 150 to 200 percent of minimum wage and grants a tax credit of $750 to $1,000 per employee against business taxes for five years. Between April 2008 and April 2013, credit totaling $102,500 for 85 jobs has been granted.
Eneguess says the college has trained workers for about a dozen companies through the Job Training Fund, but says the tax credit program has not been used to its full potential in part because businesses often find accessing state and federal funds daunting. Benoit Lamontagne, the state’s business recruiter and resource specialist for the North Country, says expectations for the job credit program are too high, especially given the recession that hit in 2009 soon after it was introduced. And the recession, he says, hit the North Country harder than any other region. “I say plant the seeds and let it grow. As the economy turns around, that is one more tool we have in our toolbox,” he says.
Eneguess says training will be key to landing those new jobs. That’s where the community college’s Work Ready NH program comes in. The free 60-hour program provides training in customer service, basic math and reading, and people skills needed to succeed in the workplace, Eneguess says.
Ripple Effect
While job growth in the North Country is mostly incremental, there are some employers significantly ramping up. The biggest is the federal prison, which has 239 employees, of which about 150 are locals. Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, which first accepted prisoners in the fall of 2012, has an annual payroll of $22 million. Though the prison does not track money spent on vendors, area businesses say the economic impact has been positive.
White Mountain Lumber is a third-generation family-owned sawmill with an Ace Hardware store and is located on the same street as the federal and state prisons. Overall business is now almost back to pre-recession levels and the company employs close to 50 people. One reason for this is the prisons. “A lot of people stop by on the way and place their order, or will stop on their way home,” says Co-owner Mark Kelley.
None of these efforts alone will be the silver bullet that jumpstarts economic development, but they all play a part in creating a new North Country economy. For now, Littleton is unique in the North Country with its four highway exits, full industrial park and bustling downtown, but former State Senator John Gallus and owner of Gallus and Green Real Estate in Berlin hopes such efforts mean more people discover the benefits of the North Country. As one buyer told him last fall during a fall foliage trip, “I’ve found paradise. I’ve got to buy a house.” Gallus hopes to hear more of that, making Littleton the rule rather than the exception in the North Country.
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