By Carol Coultas,Business Writer
Jim Dowe is bringing his banking expertise and creative energy to MPBN, helping the public affairs station chart its future. Stay tuned.

LEWISTON – When the search committee began looking for a new chief for the Maine Public Broadcasting Network, it wanted someone with organizational skills and a track record of leading a successful organization.

A glance around Jim Dowe’s office and you know he nailed the first requirement. Not a pen out of place on his desk, magazines and annual reports stacked perfectly on a side table. A black leather motorcycle jacket draped neatly over one chair back hints at the Turner native’s wilder side, just as the natty gray suit jacket draped over another confirms his executive bearing.

To confirm the committee’s second requirement, take a look at Bangor Savings Bank’s performance. Dowe, the bank’s former chief executive, oversaw its rise from a regional operation with assets of $787 million to Maine’s biggest homegrown bank, with assets totaling $1.8 billion.

Part of that transformation came from predicting Maine’s banking needs and then positioning BSB to meet them. It’s a model Dowe expects to use in his new public sector role as he guides the $12 million organization into the new millennium.

“I think there are lot of similarities between where we are here and where Bangor Savings Bank was a few years ago,” said Dowe in his Lisbon Street office. “No. 1, it’s a changing industry. No. 2, it’s a changing Maine.”

In the banking world, change meant diversifying. BSB grew from being primarily a neighborhood bank for the northern half of Maine, to a multi-faceted financial institution, offering insurance, investment, commercial lending and other services statewide.

“We developed the bank’s capabilities so that a local Maine bank could have sophisticated people, products and services to compete with big out-of-state forces,” said Dowe.

“The competitive landscape is global in this business,” he said, gesturing to the radio in his office. “How does a local, Maine, independent organization compete with global competitors?”

The world of public affairs and news is changing. The advent of the Web, pod casts, blogs, digital technology and other cyber scenarios means constant challenges for MPBN.

“The question is, how does Maine want us to change to be relevant and viable?” asked Dowe.

The question forms the core of one of his first undertakings: identifying the organization’s priorities in collaboration with staff, board and members.

“Clearly we have annual plans and budgets we’re focused on,” he said. “But the board wants to develop a longer range plan to guide us through our future.”

Again his banking background helps. As a mutual company, BSB doesn’t have stockholders driving performance measures, which in turn gives the bank more freedom in setting goals and timelines. That same long view is applicable at MPBN.

“We have to be rigorous about our financial condition and we’re getting more rigorous about business practices,” said Dowe. “And we need to look to not just the end of the next quarter, but the next quarter-century in terms of where this organization needs to be.”

Dowe is approaching the task – and everything else about his new job – with zeal.

After 19 years as a bank president (11 at Bangor), he’s delighted at the change. He began to think of something other than banking a couple of years ago when Gov. John Baldacci tapped him to serve on the committee that launched the Creative Economy conference.

“I blame him for this,” quipped Dowe.

The conference, which pegged Maine’s economic development to fostering its creative talents, got him thinking.

“It made me explore – at least a little bit – if I wanted to do something else before I died,” he said.

He was in a good place to consider a change. Ten years earlier he’d hired Jim Conlon, with the idea that he would one day be his successor.

Last June, Conlon assumed the CEO post while Dowe remained president. At the same time, he was serving on the MPBN board. When the public broadcasting network began looking for a new boss, Dowe’s name came up.

“I resigned from the board and became a candidate from the beginning,” said Dowe, still a little dazed at the sequence of events. “It was a very rigorous process and if I was going to be a serious candidate, it had to be from the beginning.”

Since taking over the reins in early April, Dowe said he’s been getting to know the staff and the operation better. And collecting ideas. He said no matter where in the state he goes, people never hesitate to offer their programming suggestions.

“When’s ‘Mystery!’ coming back?” he offered by way of example. ” I get that a lot.”

He always listens. Not only because he wants input for MPBN’s strategic plan, but also because he values its 55,000 members. About 64 percent of the organization’s budget comes from member support. (Of the rest, 19 percent comes from the state; 12 percent from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; and 5 percent from grants.)

But Dowe has his sights set on a wider audience, and potential funding base.

Inspired by a traveling friend who programs his laptop computer to MPBN, so “he can listen to Irwin Gratz in the morning no matter where he is,” Dowe said he realized there are more than Maine’s 1.2 million people to target for support.

Among them: snowbirds, retirees, students, young Mainers who move out of state, vacationers and others who have spent time in the state and developed an affection for it.

“Would they like to still know and care about what’s going on in Maine?” he asked. “I think they do. We have the perfect way to reach them – click on MPBN.net.”

Dowe practices what he preaches. The office radio is tuned to 90.1 and he listens while making the temporary commute from Bangor to Lewiston. The Leavitt High grad and his wife, Susan, are moving back to Turner to be nearer the office and their roots (his mother lives in Turner, hers in Auburn.)

Once settled he might have time to take his 1976 BMW motorcycle for a spin, or to pick up his guitar and practice some riffs. The band he performs with, Retro Rockerz, has helped raise money for several Bangor area charities, but isn’t quite ready for prime time performances.

“Nobody will pay to hear us,” he joked.

Still, it gives his creative juices a workout, a lot like his new job.

“I can’t imagine being anywhere else,” he said. “I feel very lucky.”