AUGUSTA (AP) – Maine Agriculture Commissioner Robert Spear was airlifted from Cuba to Miami on Friday to be treated for a serious infection that struck Spear while he was on a trade mission, Baldacci administration officials said.

An air ambulance hired to transport Spear arrived in Florida on Friday afternoon, said Baldacci spokesman Lynn Kippax.

“I’ve just learned that Commissioner Spear is now in the hands of doctors at the Jackson Memorial Hospital, in Miami,” Kippax said in a statement. “I spoke with the doctor who attended to Spear during the flight from Havana to Miami. The doctor says that Spear is conscious and alert.’ Although it appears that his infection has lessened, Spear remains in intensive care. His wife Janet and son Jeffery are with him in Miami.”

The commissioner had traveled last weekend on the mission to market Maine farm goods during the weekend.

Gov. John Baldacci said he had spoken to Spear, who advised administration officials to wait until Friday to move him. State officials have been in contact with officials at the U.S. State Department and with personnel in Cuba.

Spear, a former Republican lawmaker from Nobleboro, has served as head of Maine’s Department of Agriculture since 1999 and is one of several Baldacci Cabinet members held over from the administration of Gov. Angus King.

Spear’s trip to Cuba was described as a follow-up to a larger trade mission that was undertaken late last year.

In December, Baldacci announced that Cuba had agreed to purchase up to $10 million worth of farm products including potatoes, apples, and dairy cattle from Maine producers.

Spear, who lives in Nobleboro, had been scheduled to return to Maine this week.

Before being named to head the Agriculture Department by Gov. Angus King in 1999, Spear served for eight years in the Maine House of Representatives. A 1965 graduate of the University of Maine, he also has worked at Spear Farms, Inc., a family-owned dairy and vegetable farm.