AUGUSTA – John “Jack” Cashman won unanimous committee endorsement for commissioner of the Department of Economic and Community Development on Tuesday, setting the stage for his likely Senate confirmation next week.

The Committee on Business, Research and Economic Development voted 11-0, with two absent, to recommend Cashman’s appointment after several business advocates described him as hardworking and experienced as both a businessman and government official.

Cashman, a former 10-year legislator from Old Town with expertise in tax issues, ran a real estate and commercial insurance business in Bangor and has been a top aide to Gov. John Baldacci since early this year.

Working in a consulting role in his business, Cashman has dealt with the department he may soon head on tax financing, grants and related matters, he told the committee.

“I feel that I bring experience in both the public and private sectors to this job and I think the experiences I’ve had in both areas brings a balanced perspective,” Cashman told the committee.

In his role as an aide to Baldacci, Cashman has played a central role in protecting jobs, particularly in Maine’s beleaguered paper industry, the committee was told.

Jim Giffune of New Gloucester, who was on the management team that arranged for the sale of Great Northern Paper earlier this year after its bankruptcy filing, said Cashman was “very, very instrumental” in the completion of the mill’s sale to Brascan Corp. of Toronto.

The sale preserved many of the hundreds of jobs that had been lost when the Millinocket and East Millinocket mills shut down.

Cashman’s intervention also helped to save jobs that were destined to be cut at Georgia-Pacific’s paper mill in Old Town, John Delahanty, a GP attorney, told the committee.

John Williams of the Maine Pulp and Paper Association said Cashman has also worked with paper companies “who aren’t shutting down machines or laying off employees, saying, ‘What can we do (to prevent layoffs)?”‘

Among Cashman’s other supporters were representatives of groups as diverse as the pro-business Enterprise Policy Group and the Maine Center for Economic Policy, which advocates on behalf of low-income people.

The district director the U.S. Small Business Administration, Mary McAleney, said Baldacci administration policies Cashman would carry out in his new role dovetail well with federal programs aimed at developing regional economies.

For example, Baldacci’s Pine Tree Zone initiative builds upon the SBA’s Historically Underutilized Business Zone program, which is designed to drive government contracts to places like Franklin and Washington counties, McAleney said.

No one spoke in opposition to Cashman’s nomination. He faces a Senate confirmation vote when it returns Aug. 21 for a special session to also take up bonds and a property tax proposal.

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On the Net:

Department of Economic and Community Development: http://www.econdevmaine.com/

AP-ES-08-13-03 1554EDT