The charitable arm of one of the world’s largest asset management firms is giving $3 million to Maine in support of entrepreneurship and innovation.

“This will integrate innovation and entrepreneurship in a way that hasn’t been done anywhere in the country,” said Don Gooding, executive director of the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development.

At Brunswick Landing Stephen Schwarzman chairman and CEO of Blackstone said the foundation’s investment could lead to the direct creation of 10,000 jobs and another 30,000 indirect jobs adding $664 million in new revenues to the economy.

“The reasons we’re here is we want the United States to do better,” said Schwarzman. “New hubs of innovation will help start-ups get off the ground and existing companies increase profitability by connecting entrepreneurs who are focused on developing markets, innovating technologies and growing access to capital.”

Amy Stursberg, executive director of Blackstone, said the support system for entrepreneurs in Maine is excellent.

“All the pieces are in Maine; there’s so much strong programming and innovation going on already. It’s not like we’re bringing in something that doesn’t exist,” said Stursberg. “It’s really exciting — there’s just a lot of potential in Maine.”

Schwarzman agreed and added that these funds will help areas that are underserved because of their geographic rural location.

“They do an excellent job,” said Schwarzman, “but they can’t be everywhere.”

It’s the rural aspect of Maine that makes the state a challenge and Stursberg said that she’s hoping what develops here could become a model. “If it works like we hope, it would be great to replicable the Maine experience in other rural states,” she said.

For the next three years the New York-based Blackstone Charitable Foundation will assist 250 companies by funding programs that give advise to start-ups and help established businesses identify new ways of doing things and new product lines, as well as train workers. More than 400 students interested in entrepreneurship will also be trained and placed with Maine companies as interns. The funding also allows the University of Maine to offer a training program on innovating for businesspeople and the students who want to work for them.

The foundation has already invested millions in Detroit and the Research Triangle area of North Carolina.

This with out a doubt will be a huge boost for Maine’s economy— especially the state’s growth clusters. These clusters are identified complementary businesses and non-profits that when brought together to share services and information, generate more business and entrepreneurial activities in the state, as they grow.

Sounds complicated but its actually one of the oldest practices of economies in history. People throughout time have had to assess the natural attributes of where they live and think how they can sustain themselves within that environment and then how to export their goods and services. Only modern society has us eating apples from China instead of buying them from the farm down the road. For too long the state’s natural assets have been overlooked. Identifying clusters has helped people refocus their energies on the natural assets of the state—from educational to forests— where they can innovate and how they can work together.

In 2006 Governor John Baldacci understood that in order to build existing innovation clusters to increase economic activity they needed to be identified. He had already been successful in bringing Maine’s Boat Builders together along with non-profits to strengthen them as a business cluster. He appointed Karen Mills to head his Council of Competitiveness and the Economy. She, with the council, identified the clusters, educated lawmakers as to how investment in these sectors could grow the economy, and issued the Council’s report. A $50 million research and development bond followed and the funds were dispersed by the Maine Technology Institute (MTI) to business, non-profits and partnerships.

Programs for training entrepreneurs and students were put in place and more businesses received product development advise from the University of Maine, (UMaine). These investments have grown the innovation economy of Maine. But this is large rural state and certain areas have not had the opportunity to experience these programs simply because the lack of program funding due to the recession. The Blackstone grants will help bring many of these established programs to up to seven regions of Maine

In 2009 President Barack Obama appointed Karen Mills as Administrator of the Small Business Administration. In an interview when she came to Maine with the President Mills said, “I’m applying the lessons learned here in Maine on a National Level. What happens on Main Street in Brunswick is happening all across the nation.”

Because of Baldacci administration efforts, with Mills, Blackstone, with the insistence of Mills, has decided to invest in the state. The Blackstone effort will build a statewide cluster of entrepreneurship by expanding established programs.

Betsy Biemann, president of the MTI called the partnership “a great recognition of what Maine has accomplished so far, and of the potential we have to go even further.”

MTI will manage funding for the initiative, called Blackstone Accelerates Growth.

Biemann said the program will help build a, “vibrant statewide system of support for entrepreneurs. Over time, what will develop is a network of companies that have high potential for growth and a network of entrepreneurs.”

Stursberg said her group chose Maine because the state has “sophisticated entrepreneurship programs.”

She said that if the program works, it could be a template for programs in other rural states.

Blackstone’s investment is targeted to inject funds into Maine’s successful programs, including Top Gun, UMaine’s Innovation Engineering/Jump Start, other UMaine, MTI initiatives and a coaching program.

More about some of the established programs the Blackstone foundation will grow—

Maine’s two-year-old program, “Top Gun,” offered by the Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development in Portland and Bangor will be used as a model and replicated in other areas of the state. Past “Top Gun” graduates have received over $1.1 million dollars in grant funding from MTI. Since 2009, Top Gun graduate companies have created over 95 Maine jobs.

“This will help expand Top Gun— which helps companies develop and bring new products to the market successfully, and, quickly— statewide,” said Biemann.

Don Gooding, director of the program, said the support from Blackstone will allow Top Gun to reach out the mid-coast and Lewiston-Auburn to start. Top Gun’s mentoring field is going to expand to include more professional clients who have gone through the leadership institutes. Gooding will also bringing the innovation engineering curriculum to Top Gun participants.

“Maine is so small in terms of its population, yet geographically dispersed. It’s really a challenge to bring the resources to entrepreneurs wherever they are,” said Gooding. “We need this cooperation and consolidation, this creation of a statewide innovation system.”

Programs at the UMaine will be expended. UMaine’s Innovation Engineering Jump Start program is already a great success.

The two year old program offers an interdisciplinary minor. There are 140 students enrolled in the program this fall, and the curriculum is going system-wide. About 70 students taking the courses at other campuses state-wide.

The university also teaches innovation engineering through leadership institutes, with 600 people in Maine having gone through them over the past two years. They range from high-tech startups to traditional companies looking to reinvigorate their thinking, or “re-starts.”

“It’s really going to help cultivate the next generation of Maine entrepreneurs by training college students in entrepreneurship and innovation and supporting internships for them at companies involved in the initiative,” said Biemann. “It will be an opportunity to really excite young people, give them opportunities to work at companies in Maine that are growing.”

The federal government gave $5 million grant to Brunswick Landing for retraining of workers, which could work with Accelerate Growth.