Photo by Benjamin Magro

QUICK REFERENCE
Telecommunications
Transportation
Utilities
Housing
Education
Hospitals

Telecommunications (info provided by Verizon)
Maine is a leader in communications technology -- one of the first states in the nation to become 100% digitally switched. Digital networks support advanced, higher bandwidth technologies at higher speeds. This modern network is capable of supporting exciting innovative applications such as distance learning and telemedicine.

Maine has 110,000 miles of fiber optics, and became the first in the U.S. with a statewide ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode)-based network. With eight ATM switch locations throughout the state, including one in Lewiston, this advanced network makes fiber optic technology available to all Maine communities. ATM technology provides large bandwidth connections to speeds of 155 Mbps and higher for transmitting switched voice, data, and full-motion video to multiple locations throughout the world. With ATM, the bandwidth amount needed for an application can be precisely assigned when you need it and for as long as required.

Based on FCC service quality data, Maine has some of the best service and reliability ratings in the country. Also, Verizon-Maine is aggressively building redundancy and reliability in its network statewide using SONET technology.

This technological architecture provides a custom, intelligent network for interconnecting multiple locations. SONET rings guard against catastrophe in the event of a transmission failure in that network.

Maine has among the most advanced voice, data, and video transmission services available. Among them is ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), offering inexpensive fully digital access to worldwide telecommunications through standard copper telephone lines. Other advanced services include frame relay service, Infopath Packet Switching Service, Superpath 1.544 MBPS service, Flexpath Digital PBX, and digital Centrex service.

Rail
Auburn, Maine, has one of New England's most active rail networks, with service offered through Emons Transportation Group/St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad, Canadian National, and Guilford Industries. Here are facts about rail service in L-A:

• Emons Transportation, part of Genesee & Wyoming, operates New England's only double-stack intermodal facility, allowing transfer of containers between trains and trucks and vice versa. Emons doubled the size of its intermodal facility from 16 to 35 acres recently.
• St. Lawrence & Atlantic, which was named Short Line of the Year in 1998 by Railway Age magazine, offers service as far west as Chicago, and to Europe through Halifax, Nova Scotia.
• Auburn's Safe Handling, named one of Inc. magazine's fastest growing private companies, is Maine's largest trans-shipment facility, conveniently and professionally handling chemicals and food-grade products.
• The US Department of Transportation has designated a rail corridor from Portland to Auburn a high-speed rail corridor, establishing the first steps for eventual passenger service to Lewiston-Auburn.

Highway
Lewiston-Auburn is easily accessible and is considered one of the state's central commercial hubs. In fact, nearly half of the state's population is located within a 30-mile radius of Lewiston-Auburn.

• Two turnpike exits provide direct access to both Lewiston and Auburn.
• With direct access to I-495 and I-95, L-A is part of a network that extends from Maine to Florida.
• L-A is intersected by Maine Highway Routes 3,4,11, 100, 121, 126, 136, 196, and 202.
• LA has seven trucking companies with interstate and intrastate authority utilities (sewer, water, etc.).

Air
The Auburn/Lewiston Municipal Airport is a fixed-based operator facility with two runways: one 2,750 feet, the other 5,000 feet. Numerous companies use charter service for business trips as a convenient, often more affordable mode of transportation. Other facts to consider:

• Hangar service available.
• Portland International Jetport is less than 40 minutes from Lewiston-Auburn and offers daily flights to and from Boston, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and Chicago.

Utilities

• Plenty of dependable, affordable energy.
• Decentralized electric utilities mean providers offer plans with competitive prices and multiple options.
• Natural gas serviced by Northern Utilities.
• Water and sewer: 7.5 mgd excess capacity clean water.
• Among the lowest water costs in the US.

Housing

• Single-family homes average approximately $100,000
• Local tax rate in Lewiston is $28.89.
• Local tax rate in Auburn is $28.44.

Education

Lewiston-Auburn has six colleges, an active adult education program, and a hospital-based nursing school. Children are educated in 15 public elementary schools, three private elementary schools, two middle schools, two public high schools, two alternative high schools, and a private high school.

Bates College

• Bates is ranked among the top 25 national liberal arts colleges according to US News & World Report
• Biology is the fastest growing major at Bates.
• In "The Hidden Ivies: Thirty Colleges of Excellence," Bates is lauded for its service-learning opportunities and its consistent ranking in the top 10 among all colleges in terms of student participation in international study.

University of Southern Maine Lewiston-Auburn campus/Lewiston-Auburn College

• The fastest growing campus of the Maine University System.
• In 2000, the State Legislature approved a $3.5 million appropriation to L-A College for lab and classroom space, along with state-of-the-art equipment, including the state's first virtual gross anatomy lab, which allows for virtual human organ operations.
• In cooperation with the University of Southern Maine, recently launched the Workplace Learning Partnership Project. This grant-funded initiative provides "educational coaching to workers in small- to mid-sized manufacturers in the LA area" and prepares them for economic and technological changes in the workplace.

Central Maine Community College

• Offers the state's only Graphic Arts/Printing Technology programs – one of the finest in New England.
• Operates a Cisco Systems Regional Training Academy – one of only two in Maine.
• Maine's second largest – and its fastest growing – technical college.
• Works with employers to offer courses at the worksite, on campus, or both.
• From leadership development to technical instruction, CMCC offers credit and non-credit courses with an eye on cultivating lifelong learning to strengthen the local workforce.
• Offers the Maine Quality Center program, a customized employee training and recruiting initiative at no cost to qualified companies.

Central Maine Medical Center

• Offers nursing and radiology programs.

Hospitals

Central Maine Medical Center
CMMC is one of three designated hospital-based trauma centers in Maine. CMMC operates LifeFlight of Maine, the state's only medical helicopter service, providing in-flight critical care by flight nurses and paramedics. CMMC is currently building a $76 million cardiac surgery and cardiac angioplasty program, one of only three in Maine.

CMMC also offers a comprehensive cancer program affiliated with Boston's Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, resulting in one of the state's best radiation therapy programs. Also in the area of cancer treatment, CMMC staffs an in-patient breast cancer treatment unit. In addition, the Orthopedic Institute of Central Maine has received national recognition for outcomes and cost containment for its total joint replacement program.

St. Mary's Regional Medical Center
St. Mary's has received widespread acclaim for specialty areas including behavioral medicine, neuroscience, and spinal injury treatment. St. Mary's houses a Stealth Neuronavigational System, one of New England's only computerized systems for spine and brain surgical procedures. In fact, St. Mary's was the first hospital in New England and one of the first in the country to have computer-guided robotic operating microscopes that allow for treatment of movement disorder symptoms associated with diseases such as Parkinson's.