11/13/2009 - Downtown Portland Corporation and City of Portland Honors Three Local Businesses on November 12, 2009

University of New England, Kepware Technologies and BioProcessing Inc. Receive Top Awards

On Thursday, November 12, 2009, the Downtown Portland Corporation (DPC) and the City of Portland presented the fourteenth annual business awards to three local businesses that have played a major role in developing Portland’s economic vitality.

University of New England (UNE) received the 2009 Economic Development Achievement Award in recognition of the Inaugural Class for the newly constructed College of Pharmacy on its Portland Campus on Stevens Avenue. UNE recently completed an investment of $17 Million in a stateoftheart LEED certified, 48,000 square foot College of Pharmacy (academic and research facility) and welcomed its first class of one hundred pharmacy students this past September. The research orientation of UNE's College of Pharmacy makes it different from most other pharmacy schools in the country, with research labs designed to facilitate drug discovery and development. A $4 million grant from the Maine Technology Asset Fund helped to fund them. UNE is now embarking on plans for the first Dental School in the State of Maine.In total, UNE’s Portland campus has 853 students (College of Health Professions and Pharmacy School). The employment level at the Portland campus is over 200 people, of which 118 are residents of the City of Portland.

Located in the heart of Portland’s Downtown with more than 45 employees, Kepware Technologies received the 2009 Business of Year Award. Kepware is a growing information technology company located at 400 Congress Street. Corson Ellis, the CEO, started the company in 1995, and Kepware is now considered a world leader in communication software for automation with a national and international clientele, including Fortune 500 companies such as General Electric and Hewlett Packard. Kepware expects to grow its employment level to 6080 people within the next two years. Most of its employees are computer science engineers, many of whom relocated to Portland. In an effort to develop the local workforce skill set, Ellis recently established the Kepware scholarship in computer science at University of Maine, Orono.

BioProcessing, Inc. received the 2009 Small Business of Year Award. In operation since 1991, BioProcessing manufactures specialized raw materials for diagnostic use. Gary Goodrich, founder and President, made the decision to move BioProcessing, Inc., from Scarborough to Portland on Riverside Street in July 2006, investing in real estate and building a new 10,000 sq. ft. facility with state of the art cell culture laboratories. The product line includes novel tumor marker proteins, monoclonal antibodies, and diagnostic control serums for clinically approved and novel immunoassays. The company began a new division in 2000 specializing in the in vitro production of proteins and antibodies from human, mammalian, bacterial and hybridoma cell lines. It offers highly specialized expertise to companies who need oncology related assay reagents using bioreactor technology, hybridoma development and protein purification. The company currently employs 20 people.

All three award recipients were recognized at the DPC’s annual event held at UNE’s newly-constructed College of Pharmacy. The DPC was created by the Portland City Council in 1990 to create and foster economic development within the city.