New Ventures

Franklin American Mortgage Company has opened a new office in Portland at 470 Forest Ave. Mary B. Miller will serve as the branch manager of the new office. FAMC offers an array of residential home financing, including FHA and VA lines. The office can be reached at 879-4393.

Anytime Fitness has opened in the Northgate Plaza off Auburn Street in Portland. Noelle Surette will manage the new 5,000 sq. ft. co-ed fitness facility, which will offer members 24 hour access to the club, seven days a week. For membership information, call Noelle at 878-2008, or visit anytimefitness.com.

Town & Country Credit Union recently celebrated the opening of its newest branch in Portland. The new branch offers a retail-type setting at 426 Forest Avenue. For more information about Town & Country, visit tcfcu.com or call 773-5656.

The law firm of Taylor, McCormack and Frame LLC, has moved to new offices at 30 Milk St. in Portland.
 
Robert E. Hirshon, counsel in the litigation and trial group at law firm Verrill Dana LLP, was selected to teach a one-month course at Peking University’s School of Transnational Law in Shenzhen, China. Hirson will provide instruction in law practice management issues and current events in the legal profession.

The board of directors of Shalom House, Inc., recently announced the renaming of its O’Brion Street Group Home to the Seth Jordan House in memory of Seth Hiester Jordan. The Seth Jordan House is a six-bed, residential treatment facility that provides supportive, long-term housing for individuals with a severely disabling mental illness who need rehabilitation and intensive support services. In addition, Shalom House has partnered with Bob, Nancy and Zeke Jordan to create the Seth Jordan Memorial Fund which will enable Shalom House to develop a new full-time staff position. The new staff person will help clients connect to resources and support when leaving Spring Harbor Hospital. The service is targeted especially toward individuals who don’t have MaineCare insurance and aren’t eligible for existing community services.

LTC Financial Partners LLC, has launched a new division, Worksite Academy, to help employers maintain productivity with an aging workforce. The Worksite Academy division will be led by Todd Grove of Cumberland, a founding partner of LTCFP, with offices in Portland. The Academy will help organizations of all types and sizes address long-term health care issues through education delivered by employee benefits brokers. It will also be co-led by Ed Jette, former co-owner and co-founder of Empower Services, a long-term care worksite specialist. Jette maintains LTCFP offices in Boston, Mass.

Thorne Conley and Jane Conover have launched C is for Cupcake a Cause & a Cure, a fully-licensed cottage bakery based in Bath. The bakers commit to making a per-dozen-sold donation to benefit numerous charitable organizations in Maine.  C is for Cupcake offers mini and standard sizes, with prices ranging from $15-$36 per dozen. Buddy-to-Buddy boxes are $6.50. Nonprofits located within a 50-mile radius of Bath receive complimentary delivery service. For more information, please contact Conley at 841-0237, Conover at 837-3288 or cisforcupcake7@gmail.com.

Island Treasure Toys of Yarmouth has opened a second location at the corner of Bow and Middle Street in Freeport. Store owners Anita and Jim Demetropoulos have owned and operated Island Treasure Toys since 2002. The store sells an array of high-quality toys made of natural materials and carries brands such as Lego, Playmobil, Melissa & Doug and Zutano clothing. To contact the Freeport store, call 865-7007.

Powers Real Estate of Yarmouth has recently merged with Legacy Properties Sotheby’s International Realty. The six agents from Powers Real Estate, Heidi Hall, Rebecca Meier, Lisa Wentzell, Joi Kressbach, Carrie Martin, and Powers Real Estate Principal Patrick Powers will join Legacy’s team at its Portland office located at Two City Center. All of the Powers’ agents can now be reached at 780-8900.

A new iPhone App designed especially for Portland residents and visitors, PortlandVibe, has recently been launched. It is a free, interactive, real-time guide to local restaurants, activities and daily events. Co-founder of PortlandVibe, Lindsay Belanger, says the App has a companion website at portlandvibe.com, and can be found on Facebook at facebook.com/portlandvibe. The App is available as a free download on Apple’s App Store and through the website.

Yarmouth-based Chimani LLC, has released its newest App, Chimani National Parks, available from Apple’s iTunes App Store, keyword “chimani.” The App aims to serve as a complete resource for visitors and fans of the National Park System. The Chimani National Parks app allows users to create a virtual passport of their visits to any one of the 394 National Park System locations and includes details on all national parks, monuments, memorials, seashores, recreational areas, sites, battlefields, historical parks, and parkways. Users can create a virtual passport of their trips by “stamping” the parks they have visited and can access news provided by National Park Traveler. The Chimani National Parks App is available in Android and iPhone versions.

Swiss Chocolatier Lindt has recently opened a new Lindt Chocolate Shop at 1 Freeport Village Station, Freeport.

Phil Pastore of Scarborough has launched an innovative products business, Solution Mates Inc. SMI represents, manufactures, engineers, imports and nationally distributes consumer items that promote healthier living, save money, and either are made in the U.S. or can be made in the U.S. For more information, visit www.solutionmates.com.   

Todd Wolf, president of TelLan Network Technologies Inc., doing business as VoIPnet Technologies, and Larry Cushing, president of ITPartners LLC, have announced a merger of the two companies to form Unified Technologies Inc.  The company is located at 583 Warren Ave. in Portland with a branch office at the Hesser Technology Center in Manchester, N.H. Unified Technologies is a complete “Technology as a Service” (TaaS) company with a focus on managed IT, hosted and managed VOIP telephony, virtualization, cloud computing, ISP and video services. The company expects to hire 10 to 15 new staff members for its engineering and sales teams. For more information, visit unifiedtechnologies.com.

Sidebar Elements

---

Norway Savings Bank recently celebrated the grand opening of its new branch location at 266 U.S. Route 1 in Falmouth.  The Falmouth branch was originally located at 240 U.S. Route 1 in the Shops at Falmouth Village shopping center. Staff at the Falmouth branch presented a $500 donation to the Falmouth Food Pantry during the ribbon-cutting ceremony at the branch’s open house. The Falmouth branch also held a special promotion, “Dollars from the Vault,” where members of the community were invited to visit the new branch, receive a $1 bill, and be entered into a drawing for $1,000 grand prize. Robert Wood of Falmouth won the grand prize. Pictured here  from left, are Norway Savings employees Vicki Leighton, Jelena Rakic, Jeannie King, Chris Peterson, grand prize winner Robert Wood, and Norway Savings employees Joan Voyer and Krista Spera.