Skowhegan Savings buying five Camden National branches

Skowhegan Savings has received regulatory approval to purchase Camden National Bank’s five Franklin County branches, in Farmington, Kingfield, Phillips, Rangeley and Stratton, the bank said Wednesday.

The transaction is expected to close in early October, when the five Camden National branches will become Skowhegan Savings branches.

Affected customers should expect to receive notifications from Skowhegan Savings over the next few weeks outlining details of the transition, the bank said.

The acquisition will increase the Skowhegan-based bank’s total branches from 10 to 15. 

Bus-refurbishing business expands into city vehicles

A Limestone business that got its start overhauling military Humvees and trucks is expanding again, this time into transit buses.

The Maine Military Authority had already teamed up with the state Department of Education to rebuild 15 school buses, saving schools more than $750,000, said Gov. Paul LePage, who signed an executive order creating the school bus refurbishing program in 2011.

The program unveiled Wednesday focuses on transit buses. There are about 300 regional transit buses in the state, including 100 large buses used by cities, including Portland, said Tim McCabe, business director for the military authority.

Created in 1997, the Maine Military Authority, a quasi-state agency, has refurbished more than 14,000 military vehicles at the former Loring Air Force Base in Limestone, a town in Aroostook County. 

BIW sets a christening date for new Zumwalt destroyer

An enormous, technology-laden warship that’s taking shape at Maine’s Bath Iron Works is due to be christened Oct. 19.

The event will feature the Zumwalt, the first of a new class of destroyers that’s the largest ever built for the U.S. Navy.

Once derided for costing more than $3 billion apiece, the three 600-foot-long ships to be built are viewed as central to the Navy’s China strategy.

The big ships feature a new wave-piercing hull, composite deckhouse, electric drive propulsion, advanced sonar, missiles, and powerful guns that fire rocket-propelled warheads as far as 100 miles.

— From staff and news services