Portland, Maine – The Maine Marketing Association is pleased to announce it’s next Lunch & Learn. Bob Tiernan, President of Cameo Marketing, will be presenting “The Importance of Human Contact in a Digital Age” at the April event. The Lunch & Learn will be held on Wednesday, April 21 at TechMaine, 506 Main Street in Westbrook. The 80 minute presentation will begin promptly at 11:40 AM, with registration and networking beginning at 11:00. Lunch is included in the program fee.

About the seminar

Despite our love affair for all things technological, in a recent survey of top sales and marketing professionals, event marketing was voted the number one discipline for producing results. Bob Tiernan, President of Cameo Marketing, will explore the power of one-on-one event marketing and how it can help your organization build strong consumer relationships that result in the creation of brand evangelists and drive sales. You’ll leave with a greater appreciation for the importance of maintaining human connections, especially in today’s world, in which we as marketers have become increasingly dependent upon electronic and digital communications.

Topics include

• The definition of event marketing and its history as a relatively new marketing force.
• The seven key benefits of event marketing and how well-crafted brand experiences can connect your organization with its consumers.
• Why and how event marketing continues to deliver an exceptionally strong ROI.
• Real-world examples of how Cameo Marketing clients have benefited by strengthening their connections with customers through event marketing.

About Bob Tiernan

Cameo Marketing was founded in 1992 by Bob and his wife Bonnie, and represents the fulfillment of Bob’s dream to build a second career. A native New Englander, Bob spent much of his professional life in the broadcasting industry and held executive level positions at Selcom, Westinghouse Broadcasting and CRN International. Bob provides leadership and creativity in the design of Cameo projects – from concept to fabrication to execution

Networking and registration for the seminar, which is open to both MMA members and non-members, begins at 11:00 AM. The presentation starts promptly at 11:40 and ends at 1:00. The cost for lunch is included in the fee: $15 members, $35 non-members, $10 students. TechMaine members may also attend at the MMA member rate. To register for the Lunch & Learn, please click HERE.

The Maine Marketing Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing ongoing marketing-related education and support to its members and to the region’s business community. It is the first group of its kind in Maine, dedicated exclusively to marketing education. Membership is just $89 for a full year.

Augusta.  Beleaguered Maine scallopers, groundfishermen and shrimp harvesters are telling the Maine legislature that they face financial ruin if a tiny state public lands agency becomes a political powerhouse by leasing Maine’s commercial fishing grounds out from under them.

The fishermen fear that this could take place if the legislature approves LD 1810, An Act To Implement the Recommendations of the Governor’s Ocean Energy Task Force.

The bill would  authorize the Department of Conservation’s Bureau of Parks & Lands to lease nearshore state waters to the wind industry, and loosens the state’s and municipal environmental and conservation laws, rules and ordinances to be used the state waters windfarm application decisionmaking process.

LD 1810’s public hearing took place March 11th. At the hearing, Marine Resources Committee co-Chair Leila Percy told the Utility & Energy Committee, which is considering LD 1810,   that to protect marine resource users, the 35 page bill – which was only introduced in committee that week – required careful scrutiny before any final action is taken “I want to speak about the bump in the road, “ Percy told the committee. “I haven’t had a chance to read the bill. bsp;And a lot of my constituents haven’t had a chance to read the bill.” Percy said she had spoken with fishermen at the Seminar on Ocean Windfarms & Maine Fishermen at the  2010 Maine Fishermens Forum l

Percy called for the bill to passed as a “resolve”, then brought before fishing and tourism based coastal communities and before the Marine Resources Committee and the Natural Resources Committee,  before final action on a bill in 2011.
“I think having everyone’s voice in a much greater conversation would be helpful” she said.

Other portions of the bill  have also come under fire. If passed,  the Bureau of Parks and Lands could:

* Offer 2 year “lease options,  3 year predevelopment leases”,  5 year “pre-operation leases” and 30 year operating leases. In addition the Bureau plans to offer 50 year  leases of the state’s submerged marine lands to wave and tidal energy interests

LD 1810 would also:

* Allow the banning of commercial fishing within the wind leases using any gear that wind industry insurers deem risky to wind farm’s underwater cables and  structures.

* Allow wind companies to use eminent domain on shoreline and inland property owners, to allow the industry to cut powerline and tower rights of way through private land as needed to connect the offshore developers to the national grid.

* Forbid coastal towns from assessing property taxes on wind turbines or related equipment and facilities in the municipalities’ waters that are “below the mean low-water line on waters subject to tidal influence.”

* Forbid coastal resorts from challenging nearshore windfarms for threatening to  degrade economically critical, measurable scenic values without penalty or need to compensate other users for lost values.

* Forbid Maine citizens from filing appeals of Maine Department of Environmental Protection windmill project decisions to the Maine Board of Environmental Protection. Would-be appellants would need to go straight to state court.

* Forbid the Maine Board of Environmental Protection from assuming jurisdiction over Maine Department of Protection windmill applications.

Critics say  the result of the relaxed and weakened standards could stimulate a wild west style  submerged lands rush, with speculators staking exploratory claims over Maine fishing grounds, then selling their leases for a tidy profit to one of the big energy concerns that hope to dominate the wind energy business.

“Who wrote this junk bill?” said fishermen  Brian Preney of Boothbay, a member of the state’s Sea Urchin Zone Council.  “Would anybody with any civic responsibility propose such a poor piece of legislation?  I would like to know who wrote it and who they represent, because it certainly is not me or the people of Maine.”

As a result of the fishing industry’s concerns, political leaders are taking action. Speaker of the House Hannah Pingree has pledged  that the bill  will be extensively modified.

“I think we’ll scale down the bill significantly”, she reassured one concerned constituent.  ”We were disappointed the bill came from the Governor so late in the session with so many big issues to be resolved.”

The state’s heating industry is also up in arms about the bill, which proposes phasing that business out and requiring Mainers to use electricity for heating their homes and workplaces.

Final action on LD 1810 takes place 1pm Thursday March 18th, when the Maine legislature’s Utility and Energy Committee holds its work session on the bill.