RUMFORD – The last time Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, visited the River Valley Technology Center, she saw a huge, cavernous brick mill with rough floors and walls. But it had lots of potential.

On Thursday, nearly a year and a half later, she saw a bright, bustling building with all the office space filled and a small manufacturing company busy making precision metal parts.

“It’s remarkable what you’ve done,” she told the tech center’s director, Norm MacIntyre.

She, along with Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Rep. Michael Michaud, D-Maine, helped in securing the several million dollars needed to renovate and improve the infrastructure of one floor of the former bag mill.

Now, MacIntyre told her, the tech center is looking to renovate another floor of the historic brick mill into a Fractionation Development Center. And to do that, millions more will be needed.

A fractionation center will be a cooperative project between the tech center, the River Valley Growth Council, the University of Maine, and several entrepreneurs that will conduct research into turning wood products into a variety of chemicals and fuels.

The tech center has already received a state grant of $78,000 that will be used to devise a plan for renovating the fourth floor and setting up a research lab.

And Snowe promised to do all she can to find money for the actual development of the fractionation center and the continued renovation of the century-old building.

“We’ll work on this for you,” she said, suggesting that money might be available through small business agencies as well as through other federal resources. “I’ll have my staff look into it.”

She said Maine’s congressional delegation will likely work together to try to find the money needed for the fractionation center.

She said the growth council and tech center are looking ahead to future industrial needs.

“I congratulate you on your ingenuity and innovation. We have to create new avenues for job creation, and that starts at the local level,” she said, adding that using resources, such as wood products, in a different way is necessary to the ever-changing world.

After the tour of the tech center, Snowe took at walk downtown, shaking hands with business owners and others. She then campaigned for local Republican candidates running for a variety of state offices in November’s election.