Matt Jacobson for Governor | Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

Date: May 21, 2009
Author: Wiscasset Newspaper

By ALAN BEBOUT

Staff Reporter

If Matt Jacobson can bring 1,500 jobs to Maine as president of a little known and modestly financed company, how many jobs can he bring to Maine as governor?

This is the question Matt Jacobson brought to mind as he spoke at a luncheon at the Montsweag Roadhouse in Woolwich on Tuesday, May 12. This was his first public appearance after kicking off his campaign to become governor on May 8.

More than once in the course of answering questions, he proclaimed that Maine can become world class in whatever field it chooses. Coming from someone else, this might sound like an idle boast built on hope, but Jacobson believes it is a realistic goal based on his solid track record of performance. In the past few years, Jacobson succeeded in bringing NotifyMD, Athenahealth, and Boston Financial Data Services, along with 1,500 jobs to Maine while serving as President of Maine & Company (www.maineco.org). He seems to excel at turn-around challenges.

At the age of 36, he became president of the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, headquartered in Auburn where, in a four-year period, he attracted 23 new businesses to the line, tripled revenues, and raised corporate earnings by 65 percent. Not bad, for a 1984 Naval Academy graduate who served as an Air Force pilot in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East before marrying his wife Kate, an Emergency Room Physician.

Jacobson is a man who can light a fire under an audience. Before lunch he gave a quick summary of his background and laid out his vision for Maine, should he be elected, then, after lunch, opened himself up to more than an hour of hard questioning.

The questioners came to test him. There was a lobsterman, an owner of a fish processing company, two federal government employees, an antique dealer, two or three salespeople, a restaurant owner, a preacher, and several folks who had retired from the Navy, big corporations and teaching. They all had one thing in common; a deep concern for the future of a state that they love.

One questioner painted an unsettling picture when he prefaced his question by saying, "Maine is a failing state. The population is declining and aging, the high school dropout rate is high and rising, good jobs are scare, too many of our kids have to leave Maine to find a career, 13 percent of Maine families earn less than $20,000 a year, nearly one third of Mainers are on MaineCare (MediCaid), and our taxes are so high businesses don’t want to bring jobs here."

Jacobson zeroed in on the challenges he saw in the troubling statement. He sees the solution to most of them in a faltering and paralyzed private sector, and illustrated what could happen if Maine used the lure of its maritime heritage and focused on bringing 1,500 cruise ships to towns along Maine’s coast.

"Maine should be a world class maritime center," he said. "We have a great Maritime Academy, and a boat building heritage that can be marketed to the world. Coastal towns could become home ports for cruise ships, and a full scale maritime college could teach our kids to be ship-board chefs and engineers, and our kids would have ample and high paying summer jobs as stewards, waiters, and reservations people. And cruise ships need maintenance. Why shouldn’t Maine’s boatyards be the World Class place for ship maintenance work?"

The appearance is pleasant, the charm is magnetic, and the ideas burst from a mind focused on building a thriving economy. This is a man who can challenge, inspire, and motivate people to get busy solving problems rather than wringing their hands in dismay at the mountain before them. His passion for Maine is matched by his communication skills. What defenses would prospective Maine employers have if confronted by such a skilled salesman/governor?

Jacobson looks at his status as a political outsider as a plus. "Look where the insiders have gotten us," he says. "I don’t owe anything to special interests, and I don’t have a network of good-ol-boys looking to me to return favors. I’m in it for the good of Maine. Maine needs jobs. I know how to create jobs."

With two elementary school aged children, Jacobson has a deep concern about the condition of the education system in Maine. He would like to see it producing graduates more in tune with the jobs offered by Maine employers, and believes this is one of the reasons so many drop out of school.

"We want our k-12 system to prepare kids for college, but it should also be turning out more qualified trades people," he says. "And, if our kids want to go after a PhD degree, they should be able to do it in Maine. Maine companies should not have to look to other states to supply highly trained professionals."

Jacobson believes that Maine taxes can be reduced by making Maine government at all levels more efficient. "Why do we have so many school superintendents?" he asks. "There is too much duplication of effort in Maine government.

"Why should five agencies be dealing with the same issue? Why not consolidate them into one? Maine government can be much more effective and less expensive." He thinks his experience in working with ten railway unions will help him greatly when having to present needed reforms to public employee unionized government workers and unionized teachers.

"When people cooperate and collaborate to improve a situation, there is no limit to what they can achieve," he says.

When the session ended, Jacobson stood off to the side and met with the attendees one-on-one to be sure all questions were answered. No posturing. No elitist mannerisms. Just a regular guy with a strong background in getting it done opening himself to those he hopes will help him become governor.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

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