This spring, much of his time was spent trying to save the Old Town paper mill. It’s a job that hits close to home, for Cashman is an Old Town guy. The 56-year-old moved to Maine when he was three years old, after his father, then a Woolworth manager, was transferred to Old Town. One of six children, he worked tables at a restaurant his father later opened, while attending John Bapst High School (class of 1969) and UMaine, Orono (class of 1973).
Four years out of school, Cashman followed in his father’s footsteps (the elder Cashman was a longtime city councilor) and was elected to the Old Town City Council—about the same time John Baldacci joined the city council in Bangor. They became fast friends, and remained so, first in the state legislature and then as they took different career paths. Cashman found success in commercial real estate and insurance, Baldacci in politics.
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When Governor Baldacci ran for his current post, he asked Cashman to help with the campaign. When Baldacci won, and needed someone to steer the state’s economic development ship, he talked Cashman into the job.
Bangor Metro spoke with Jack Cashman a few days before the announcement that Georgia Pacific was leaving Old Town.
Tell me about growing up in Old Town.
I was born in Salem, Massachusetts. We moved here, and my father ended up opening a restaurant in 1960, Jack’s Snack Shop. Myself and all five of my siblings worked there at one time or another. It ended up a breakfast and lunch place. But at one point we were open 24 hours a day. Back in those days, Old Town had six or eight taverns downtown and they all closed at the same time, so people would come into my father’s place for late-night snacks, after drinking.
That must’ve been interesting.
We had some rather lively times. I remember one time I went to wait on a table. I asked them what they wanted and the guy stood up and punched me right in the face. I was 15 years old. The guy was a grown man. I looked up from the floor and my father was holding him off. He wanted to hit me again. I don’t even know what I did.
How did growing up there shape you to become a public servant?
My father was active politically, and served nine years on the city council. He always felt that you should give back to your community. This is a great country and a great state, and I’ve been fortunate to make a good living here. I don’t mind paying taxes. But taxes don’t really cover what you owe your community. That’s the way I was brought up.
Tell me about your career outside of politics.
I got my insurance license and real estate license on the same day, in 1975, passed two tests on the same weekend. In insurance, I worked for Prudential for a couple of years, then I partnered with Royce Cross at Cross Insurance for 22 years. In real estate, I worked with Dave Giroux at Pro Realty. Then I formed my owned company, Cashman Associates, doing real estate development and commercial sales. After a time, I ended up selling that back to Dave, and went to work with him again.
I keep hearing about a high-end condo project you’re working on in Brewer that sold out really fast.
We’re building a 16-unit project off Cove Street. It’s gone really well. They went pretty quick. They’re big, and they’re fairly high-priced [from $295,000]. I think it is good news for the area. The waterfronts on both sides of the river have taken on a whole new life in the last 20 years. If you look at the developments in Hampden, and what Brewer and Bangor are doing with the waterfront, it’s exciting. You’re starting to see the smaller cruise ships come up into Bangor. I think you’ll see more boating on the river. I think the waterfront is about to take off.
You’ve said that you bring the perspective of a small business owner to your current job. How?
If you’ve owned your own business, you have a different perspective on things. I tell people that when you’ve sat at your desk at 4:30 on a Friday afternoon, talking to your banker about extending your credit line so you can meet your payroll, then you know what it’s like to be in business. And if you haven’t done that, it’s tough to imagine what that’s like. I’ve done that, and I never forget that feeling. I understand the other side of the table.
You’ve been friends with Governor Baldacci for years. How did that friendship develop, and how did it lead the two of you to where you are today?
We have a lot in common. He grew up in a family of eight, and I grew up in a family of six. We were 10 miles up the road. His father was on the Bangor Council when my father was on the Old Town Council. They were both in the restaurant business. John got on the Bangor Council about the same time I got on the Old Town Council. We knew each other. We both went to Augusta in 1982, he in the senate, me in the house. We carpooled from time to time. I’ve known the governor for 30 years, and his family. They’re very good people. Their heart is in the right place, and I say that about all eight of them, not just John. They care about people and they care about the state. That’s how they were brought up.
You’ve both come a long way.
I got kind of burnt out in Augusta. John has kept his enthusiasm. When he ran for governor, I wanted to be helpful. I offered to drive him once a week, so I was involved in the campaign. When he won, I went to work in his office as a senior policy advisor. My idea was to be there six months, get him through the first session of the legislature and then come back to work. I ended up taking this job and sticking with him. More hours, less money, you know. But it’s a tremendous opportunity.
The agency had about 40 employees and an $11 million budget when you took over. Has that changed?
It’s about the same. And a lot of that budget is pass-through, flowing to other programs [see sidebar]. We have the smallest budget in state government, and one could argue that it should be the largest. It’s difficult for me to ask for more, because I think Maine has to pare back its expenditures overall, I really do. We certainly can’t increase taxes in this state. So you become leaner, you figure out how to met your responsibilities by spending less money. It makes our job harder, because other states, even New Brunswick, have more money to spend. They can offer direct cash injections to a company. We can’t.
How do you compete, then?
The thing that we have to offer is the workforce. I tell companies that are looking to leave: “If you’re moving to another state, don’t count on getting the same productivity from the workforce, because you’re not going to.” We have the best workforce in the country. I have no doubt about that. People in Maine know how to work for a living. They expect to work for a living. And they put in a good day’s work for a day’s pay. Maybe Carolina’s offering you some money, or Georgia; in the end, you’re only going to be as good a business as your employees are.
How do you sell that?
When I’m talking to a company from out of state, that’s the first thing I say. I give them letters from companies that have written to me. Talk to people at Sitel, [a call center] up in Limestone. They’ll tell you the turnover rate up there is low. Absenteeism, showing up late, it just doesn’t happen. Those guys drive to work on snowmobiles. I was talking to a business owner up north. He hired a woman, and told her he was hiring her now to keep her from working for someone else, and told her he didn’t have much for her to do for about six weeks. “But we’ll pay you.” She says, “I don’t expect you to pay me until I start.” He looked at me and said, “We don’t hear that everywhere in the country.” I said, “I bet you don’t.” That’s Maine people. That’s our workforce.
You hear a lot about the two Maines. What are the biggest challenges this area faces in community and economic development?
It’s not just Maine. Look at Massachusetts. If you’re in the Boston area, things are pretty prosperous. You get into western Mass., it’s a different story. Maine’s not unique. But things will work in Cumberland area that won’t work in the Bangor area or the Dover-Foxcroft area. Things will work on the coast that won’t work inland.
We’ve tried to develop a plan that concentrates on probability for success. In northern or central Maine, our area, the natural resource-based economy has always been the backbone: fishing, boatbuilding, farming, and forest products. It can still be the backbone. That’s our contention. I think state government, over the last 10 to 12 years, did a very good job of moving Maine into the new economy: They started the Maine Technology Institute, the Maine International Trade Center. Those programs paid off. But you have to bring these new technologies to our backbone industries.
And you’ve been able to do that, at Lincoln Paper and Tissue and other places?
They’re adding a new paper machine. And you look at whole new production lines, new technologies at Irving Tanning [in Hartland]. Look at the composite lab at UMaine, and how it has affected business. Every major boatyard in this state is expanding. Morris Yachts in Bass Harbor, Hinckley in Trenton. They’re moving toward wood composites, and a lot of that technology is coming right out of the university.
Look at aquaculture. [New Brunswick-based] Cooke Aquaculture invested $25 million in Washington County in the last two years. They’re going to invest $40 million more in the next two years. We’ve got an incubator business [Seabait (Maine) LLC] in Washington County that raises sea worms. They’re moving out of the incubator, building a facility and hiring people. Salmon isn’t the only business. Even pulp and paper can come back. There are new technologies that turn paper company sludge that we’ve landfilled for 100 years into value-added products. Those processes are out there. They need to be refined and made profitable. We’re trying to do that.
What’s the state’s role in helping troubled businesses, such as the mill in Old Town?
You try to look at ways to make the mills more viable in terms of reducing costs, in creating new avenues to make money. Look, Irving Tanning wasn’t bankrupt because of bad luck. You go bankrupt because of bad business practices. You’ve got to change. They’ve done it, and they’re going to add 100 employees over the next year.
You can’t compete with China on labor costs. I had a Maine business owner who operates here and in China tell me the average cost for an employee in Maine, including benefits, was $36,000. In China, it’s $800. You can’t compete with that. The U.S. has to be more innovative, more industrious and more ambitious than the rest of the world. That’s how we got where we are, and if we’ve gotten a little fat and lazy, maybe this is a wake-up call.
A lot of people criticize Maine for high taxes, high costs, being a tough location. Are these misconceptions?
You don’t sell somebody on the state of Maine by saying, “The taxes are too high.” Well, they are too high. I don’t argue with that. We’re trying to bring them down. You’re not going to bring them down overnight. It’s a process. But in the meantime, if there was one thing I could change about this state, it would be that people should have a more positive attitude. You’re selling your house. You have a vaulted ceiling and a nice fireplace, and you have a leak in the cellar. You don’t sell the leak in the cellar. You don’t hide it. You don’t ignore it. But you brag about the good things.
Such as?
Maine’s unemployment insurance rates are the second lowest in the country. Maine’s worker’s comp, which used to be No. 1, is No. 28. We have the best quality of life and the best workforce on the darned planet. We’re the third-safest state in the country, and the smartest, according to recent surveys. Are we bragging enough about that? Let’s talk about the good things. Let’s talk about what’s right. There are a lot of things.
Say you’re a young person, you’ve got a couple of kids. Do you want to bring them up in the third-safest and fifth-smartest state in the country? That’s a pretty fair question to ask. Or would you rather be in Massa-chusetts, where my brother-in-law just got broken into for the fifth time. I told him, “We don’t allow that in Maine. It’s against the law here.”
