“Heather brings decades worth of private and public sector experience to the Department of Economic and Community Development,” Mills, a Democrat, said during a press conference at the State House.
Johnson, 48, is the seventh person to be nominated to Mills’ cabinet. Johnson would replace acting DECD Commissioner Denise Garland, who was appointed to that post by Republican Gov. Paul LePage after George Gervais resigned in June. Gervais had been nominated by LePage in March to head the Maine State Housing Authority, but his confirmation to that post was blocked by Democrats in the state Senate.
“I have dedicated my career to fostering economic development, both in private companies and in rural communities across Maine, and I am excited not only by the opportunity to work with economic development agencies, business and communities across the state, but by the great potential we have to find sustainable growth strategies for all parts of Maine,” Johnson said in a prepared statement.
Prior to joining ConnectME, Johnson served as the executive director of the Somerset Economic Development Corporation from 2015 to 2018. She has also worked in the private sector for technology and communications companies, including Nokia, Gateway and Toshiba.
If confirmed, Johnson will be charged with overseeing more than two dozen experts across several bureaus whose mission is to help communities and businesses prosper through a variety of programs that provide everything from targeted tax relief to community block grants to tourism marketing.
She said as commissioner of DECD she would take a region-by-region approach to economic development in Maine. “I think connectivity is absolutely one of the ways to do that. Allow people to work other places and work remotely, most large companies are moving to remote work forces so if we create connectivity options, people will be able to live wherever they want and work there as well,” Johnson said.
She said her first job as commissioner would be to take a complete inventory of all the economic development organizations and agencies working across the state in an effort to better coordinate without duplicating ongoing efforts. “We don’t need to recreate what is already out there and we don’t want to create redundancy,” Johnson said.
Johnson, who lives in Norridgewock with her husband and son, grew up in nearby Skowhegan and holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Maine, said rural and urban areas face different economic development challenges.
“Each community has different assets that we need to leverage,” she said, “which makes it a very individual approach by area.” She said there were existing tools available, including state and federal grants, tax increment financing districts, local economic development groups and a community college network that can be key to solving workforce development issues.
Dana Connors, the president of the Maine State Chamber of Commerce, which represents about 5,000 business in the state, expressed support for Johnson’s nomination.
“She is a very thoughtful, articulate and collaborative person,” Connors said. He said Johnson’s experience and background made her a good choice to head the agency, especially her understanding of rural economic development needs.
“That is very important,” Connors said. “Oftentimes we here people talk about the two Maines, but there are really many Maines, if you think about it, because each region is quite distinct.”
Mills said the top concern for businesses in Maine seeking to grow was still the lack of affordable health care coverage, noting some of that would change once she took office and a voter-approved plan to expand the state’s Medicaid program, MaineCare was fully implemented. She dismissed one of the frequent concerns of LePage – the cost of electricity for business in Maine – pointing out that the state enjoys some of the lowest electricity costs in New England.
“I think it will appeal to businesses to move here when we bring down the cost of health insurance in this state,” Mills said.
Johnson said Maine has yet to achieve widespread broadband connectivity, but she also expressed the view that even with universal broadband the race for faster and faster connection speeds would continue. She said it was more important that people had the levels of connectivity they need to grow their businesses locally.
“If you watch urban markets, they continue to grow and have more ubiquitous, faster coverage every day,” Johnson said. “So I’m not even sure there is an end destination to connectivity. It’s about enabling people to do what they need to do.”
Mills said Maine’s dispersed population was a challenge to providers of internet services and a focus on creating connectivity hubs in rural Maine would be effective first steps towards universal broadband.
She and Johnson indicated that government and private companies will have to collaborate in order to provide rural areas with more access to broadband connections.
Johnson’s nomination will go to a public hearing before the Legislature’s Innovation, Development, Economic Advancement and Commerce Committee, followed by a confirmation vote in the state Senate.
©2018 the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
