Lisa Lemieux of Salem, N.H., wipes away tears as she is joined by employees watching Arthur T. Demoulas speak during a news conference on a television at the Market Basket in Biddeford in August. Workers rallied to Demoulas’ defense when he was given the boot by other shareholders and led a successful revolt to stop shoppers from patronizing their stores until Demoulas was restored to the helm.
A contractor installs a distribution line in Hallowell for Summit Natural Gas. No state economic issue received more attention – on several fronts – in 2014 than the expansion of access to natural gas in Maine.
Jean Maginnis, executive director of the Maine Center for Creativity, was instrumental in planning the inaugural Maine Startup and Create Week. The June event attracted more than 3,100 people. The dates for the 2015 event have already been booked.
Stephen Bowden hugs Bob Hatch, facing camera, after their final shift at the Verso Paper mill in Bucksport in December. Maine’s pulp and paper industries suffered a number of serious blows in 2014, bookended by the closure of the Great Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket in January and the closure of Verso Paper’s mill in Bucksport in December.
Krista MacKay of South Gardiner, right, holds a sign while picketing against FairPoint Communications in Augusta. As 2015 begins, there is no end to a protracted stalemate in contract negotiations between FairPoint management and two unions representing roughly 1,800 workers in northern New England who have been on strike since October.
The 1,200-passenger Nova Star cruise ferry from Portland to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, made its maiden voyage on May 15, but its inaugural season is marred by low passenger counts, high operating costs and regulatory hurdles.
The year began with a one-season ban on shrimping in the Gulf of Maine, imposed by the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission following a harvest that was the smallest since the previous fishery shutdown in 1978.
A $35 million renovation of the former Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland was completed in February, paving the way for the Portland Pirates hockey team to sign a new lease.
A team from the University of Maine at Orono test a turbine outside of their laboratory. Hopes of creating a deep-water wind power industry in Maine were stifled in May, when the state’s $120 million pilot project for two floating wind turbines failed to win a competitive $47 million federal grant.
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