Your Maine Corporation- From the Woods to the Ocean

Maine is the largest state in New England, with incredible natural beauty. Maine’s population is 1,321,505. It is the 39th state in size in the United States. Maine borders the Canadian provinces of Quebec and New Brunswick on the North and the Northeast, New Hampshire in the South west, and includes 3500 miles of beautiful rocky coast on the Atlantic Ocean in the Southeast. Looking at its woods and its port of Portland should give you some ideas for your Maine Incorporation.

Ninety percent of Maine is still wooded, making it the “Pine State”. Wood products, and paper pulp industry is still important in the state. The Appalachian Trail begins in Maine, and it is the center of much hiking and outdoor sports for the hardy. Maine has a large summer tourist industry, and there are a large number of seasonal residents who have summer homes in the state, when the temperature averages 70 degrees Fahrenheit. There are also several large whitewater rivers, that are dammed controlled and have lots of flow throughout the spring and summer. They are the Penobscot River, near Mt. Katahdin, the state’s highest mountain, and the Kennebec and the Dead River, that meet at the Forks, a village three hours from Boston.

A recent report which tracked 10 million American businesses in the late nineties, ranked Maine the 10th in the nation for business retention. The March 2004 issue of Inc. Magazine includes Portland, Maine in its listing of the top 25 cities for doing business in America.
The capital of Maine is Augusta. The state’s largest port, which is only 106 miles from Boston, is Portland, which is the state’s economic center. Twenty percent of the state’s population resides in the greater Portland area. Portland is large port for foreign inbound tonnage in the United States and has become a larger port than Boston, Massachusetts. It is also the largest oil port on the U. S. East Coast. An oil pipeline extends from Portland to Montreal.
Maine has historically been the center of shipbuilding and played a critical role in the nation’s naval production and defense. The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, in Kittery Maine, is one of four remaining shipyards in the United States. It is approximately 50 miles from Boston, and is contiguous to New Hampshire. The shipyard employs 3900 civilians and has recruitment and training programs for engineers.

The other major military base in the state is the Brunswick Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine, also the home of Bowdoin College. And Bath Iron Works.

Maine’s agricultural sector includes production of 98% of the nation's low bush blueberries. It is one of the nation’s main producers of potatoes, and is famous for its maple syrup. Over 90% of the nation's lobsters are caught in the waters off of the Maine coast. Maine has a large French speaking population, which is an overflow from the French speaking province of Quebec. This is concentrated in the Lewiston area of the state.

Companies headquartered or partly headquartered in Portland include Unum which provides life insurance and other services, and TD Banknorth, which is a branch of Toronto Dominion Bank Group, headquartered in Toronto, Canada. A suburb of Portland of note is Scarborough, location of the home and studio of 19th watercolorist and painter Winslow Homer. Other corporate headquarters in Maine include L. L. Bean in Freeport, and Delorme in Yarmouth.

Howard Giske writes about how to get your
Maine Incorporation
and other business info at Inc Paradise