2006 Grant Recipients
Arbour Landscaping and
Pool Maintenance, Augusta - Jac Arbour
Jac is currently a junior at Bowdoin College , pursuing a degree in Biology. Last year, Jac took out a small loan to start
a landscaping and pool maintenance business in Augusta . He saw it through its first season with admirable success. With a LFF grant,
Jac will roughly double the capacity of his business, enabling him to
hire additional employees and market his business more effectively.
Consumer Energy Research
Corporation, Orono - Matthew Rodrigue and William Sulinski
Consumer Energy Research Corporation received a LFF grant
to develop, test and patent Heat-Safe 1000, a remote sensing device
that will benefit residential home-heating oil customers by providing
oil retailers with remote notification of low-oil and low-temperature
alarms. This device will enable oil retailers to decrease their cost
of delivering oil significantly. William Sulinski is a senior at UMaine
majoring in Financial Economics. Matthew Rodrigue is a graduate of UMaine
with a degree in Engineering and will be attending Harvard Business School this
fall.
Downeast
Machine and Fabrication, Gorham - Ezra Berry
Ezra Berry, an East Machias native and Mitchell Scholar, is a graduate of Southern Maine Technical College
and currently enrolled in the Integrated Manufacturing
Program at Southern Maine Community College. He has purchased
land in Gorham on which he will construct a machine and
fabrication shop capable of performing small to medium-sized
machining jobs for businesses in southern Maine. LFF awarded a grant to Ezra to assist with construction costs and site work
for building his machine shop.
Fuel
Mp3 Players, Auburn - Ben Fletcher
LFF awarded a grant
to Ben Fletcher to expand his business, Fuel Mp3 Players. His current
product, the Diesel, is a wireless set of athletic headphones
with a built-in Mp3 player. This summer Ben is launching an extensive
marketing campaign which will target fitness centers and athletic events
across the U.S. Ben has received endorsements from many well-known athletes
including Evander Holyfield and Bill Rodgers, a former Olympian and winner
of multiple Boston and New York Marathons.
MediCreative,
Portland - Rebecca Stockbridge
Rebecca holds a bachelor’s degree in art and entrepreneurial
studies from the University of Southern Maine .
LFF awarded her a grant to help launch her business, MediCreative, the
only web design firm in New
England targeted
specifically toward medical professionals. Only 12% of doctors in Maine have
websites, yet millions of Americans research health topics online. MediCreative
will offer web and graphic design services to doctors, dentists and veterinarians
throughout Maine and
northern New
England .
R.E.
Consulting, Orono - Rory Eckardt
Rory currently holds
a bachelor’s degree from UMaine in Forest Operations Science and
is pursing an MBA. He is currently developing his business, R.E. Consulting,
at the Target Technology Center in
Orono. Rory plans to use his knowledge of the timber industry to enable
and assist informed decision making in the forestry and forest product
manufacturing industries by offering analytical consulting services and
products. The forestry industry in Maine constitutes
6% of Gross State Product and typically relies on heuristics (i.e. rules
of thumb) for much of its harvesting and transporting decisions.
Yo
Bon, LLC, Orono - Jason Bolton
Yo Bon LLC is a food products company which produces the Yo Bon Blueberry Bite,
a fusion of dark chocolate, frozen yogurt and Maine blueberries. This product
won national recognition in the 2005 Institute of Food Technologists Student
Association Product Development Competition. Yo Bon was formed by Jason Bolton
and his teammate, Shari Baxter, two members of the award-winning team. Yo Bon
used their LFF grant to purchase production equipment and begin product testing.
They also leveraged these funds to obtain a Maine Technology Institute Seed
Grant.