In Downeast Maine, the era of the mill town is over, and diversifying the business mix may be the best chance for economic success.

"The old model, where we have a paper mill with 600 jobs and everyone is good for life, obviously those jobs are gone," said Harold Klossey, executive director of the Sunrise Economic Development Council in Washington County.

This was painfully illustrated last year with a loss of 150 jobs following the closing of the Domtar Woodland Mill in Baileyville. "It's truly a sad thing that that happened," Klossey said.

But Klossey sees reason to be positive, pointing to an array of upcoming projects either under way or soon to start in Washington County.

Acrobat Research, a Toronto-based company that collects market research data, is opening a new call center in Calais that will ultimately support 80 full-time employees, plus a few part-time workers. A new border crossing bridge will be built between Calais and St. Stephen, which should ease traffic congestion between the two cities.

And the Land Use Regulation Commission recently gave approval to a wind farm project on Stetson Mountain. The farm is expected to make use of 38 turbines. "When it's up and running, it's going to be one of the largest wind farms in New England," Klossey said.

"We're also working on (promoting) nature-based sustainable tourism," Klossey said.

"You have to be diverse," he said. "Diversity is the key to economic success everywhere. You have to have tourism, and you have to have microbusiness."

In adjacent Hancock County, Ellsworth Area Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Micki Sumpter sees things the same way. Apart from the Verso Paper mill in Bucksport, the county "does not have one business or one area" that defines it, Sumpter said.

"We're not going to have 400 layoffs," she said. "We're more diversified in our industries and our business. We do have a lot of retail, but we are more diversified."

Hancock County encompasses a wide array of industries, including tourism, fishing and the medical and technology industries -- such as Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor. Also of note, said Sumpter, is the number of "small industries that send out nationally and internationally." These include SteriPEN, a manufacturer of water purifying devices based in Blue Hill.

"You also have Superior Docks" of Ellsworth, Sumpter said. "They sell nationally and internationally. They make docks for NASA."

Among the new projects in Hancock County for 2008 is the "Acadia Crossing" project being built by W/S Development, which will add around 400,000 square feet of retail to Ellsworth in the form of a Wal-Mart Supercenter, Sumpter said.

That Downeast Maine has all its eggs in different baskets helps cushion the region economically.

"I think that in Hancock we don't have the highs and lows like some do," Sumpter said.

The region also enjoys a relatively strong housing market, aided by those buying second homes and retirement homes.

Still, Klossey said, "we have to keep in mind that the economy is going to be pretty tough for everybody." The price of gas in eastern Maine is "one of the highest if not the highest in terms of price," he said.

"Right now it's iffy what's really going to happen," Sumpter said. "We're hoping to have a lot of development up here, and it's coming."

News Assistant Isaac Kestenbaum can be contacted at 791-6308 or at:

ikestenbaum@pressherald.com