Staff Writer
PRESQUE ISLE – A partnership between three state agricultural entities has led to the development of a newly created position that will be occupied locally. According to Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, resumés are now being accepted for the position of agricultural engineer.
“This is a new position with the Maine Potato Board,” said Flannery, “but the University of Maine Cooperative Extension always had an ag engineer position on staff up until 12 to 15 years ago. As they made changes within the Extension, that was one of the positions that got eliminated and never got filled again.
“There’s been people in the industry who have said for quite a while now that this is a type of service that the industry really needs what with the new technologies that are out there, and so many things changing rapidly,” he said, “so we started talking about it a couple of years ago … ‘How can we do it?’ and ‘What’s the best way to go about doing it?’”
Earlier thoughts were to recreate the position within the Extension, but due to budget constraints, that was not feasible.
“This position is going to be created in a partnership between the Maine Potato Board, the Extension, and the Maine Department of Agriculture,” Flannery said. “We’re sharing in the cost of the position, but for a number of reasons – including state budget crunches and hiring freezes – we determined the best and easiest thing to do was to make it a position within the Potato Board, but it’s going to be more like an Extension position.
“This person is going to be out working with growers on all sorts of different issues,” he said, noting that the engineer will have an office at the Maine Potato Board building in Presque Isle. “One of the responsibilities the position will have will be to better utilize our potato storage research facility located on the Aroostook Potato Research Farm and do more industry research with the storage that we’ve got.”
The advertisement for the position notes that other duties include:
• Commercial potato storage – In conjunction with the Maine Department of Agriculture’s Potato Marketing Improvement Program and University of Maine Cooperative Extension staff, the position will be responsible for responding to grower inquiries on storage management issues.
• Water/irrigation – Assist growers with design and selection of irrigation equipment and irrigation management activities such as scheduling and techniques.
• Equipment operation and calibration – The position will provide growers assistance on operation and calibration of equipment to include combines, potato harvesters, seed equipment and sprayers, and will assist growers with research and implementation of new technology such as GPS.
Though all duties are important, Flannery said the Maine Potato Board will take advantage of the ag engineer’s strengths.
“If we hire somebody who’s real strong on storage and storage research, that will be the number-one thing they focus on,” he said. “If we get somebody who’s stronger on equipment design or has a strength in something else, that will be their primary focus. There’s some flexibility here … it will depend on who we find.
“We want to find the very best person we can to help the industry, and we will work around how we can make that happen within the parameters,” said Flannery, “but those are the types of duties we want the person involved with.”
The position is being advertised not only in The Star-Herald and the Maine Potato News, but other outlets, as well.
“We’re running once in the weekend edition of the Portland paper, plus we and the Extension advertised it through our e-mail channels,” said Flannery. “The position got pretty wide distribution, so we’ll see.”
The total ag engineer program budget range – including salary and benefits – is $68,000 to $87,000.
“The Extension is putting $20,000 annually toward the program,” said Flannery, “and the Potato Board and the Department of Agriculture are going to split the remaining share in the vicinity of a 50-50 split.”
Flannery said he is excited about filling the position, and is optimistic growers will benefit from the engineer’s work.
“Other than manufacturers, the people who sell the equipment, and the research work that is done at the Research Farm and by others, we [the potato industry] really haven’t had anybody out there doing that sort of thing,” he said. “It’s going to fill a big void.
“We envision this person not duplicating anything that we’re currently doing,” said Flannery, “so it’s got tremendous benefits. It’s going to be giving growers a tool and some support that they haven’t had and maybe help them improve their operation. In the past, the solutions to growers’ problems have been patchworked or piecemealed. This position should prevent that patchwork.”
The deadline to submit resumés is Feb. 6, and Flannery said he hopes to have the position filled before the start of the planting season, or May 1.
