Awards night at MRRA’s Annual Dinner
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- Wayfair
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- Tom Wright
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- bluShift Aerospace
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- Keynote speaker Karem Durdag
Press Release:
MRRA Names 2019’s Top Innovators, Redeveloper of the Year
Wayfair, bluShift Aerospace, Tom Wright to be honored at MRRA’s Annual Dinner
October 28th, 2019
Brunswick Landing, Maine — The Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority will award Wayfair and bluShift Aerospace as Brunswick Landing’s most innovative businesses at its annual dinner on October 28th.
Wayfair, a Boston-based ecommerce company with more than 500 employees at its Brunswick Landing site, is the winner of the Innovator of the Year in the large company division (more than 11 employees).
“We are honored to be recognized by the MRRA with the Innovator of the Year award,” said Alan Marblestone, site director, Wayfair. “At Wayfair, we’re transforming the way people shop for their homes, from providing inspiring visual merchandising to helping our customers find the right item among millions of options. Customer centricity is at the heart of our business and our Brunswick team plays a key role in continuing to build brand loyalty and strong relationships with our customers.”
bluShift Aerospace, a NewSpace startup, is Innovator of the Year in the smaller company (less than 10 employees) category. bluShift has created a new bio-derived, non-toxic, carbon-neutral fuel that is cheaper to produce than other solid rocket fuels. Recently the company earned a NASA Small Business Innovation and Research grant to develop a modular hybrid engine. Ultimately the company plans to design, build, and launch in Maine, creating 40-50 aerospace jobs in the next five years.
“It’s a great honor to be recognized by MRRA for our hard work and progress,” says Sascha Deri, founding CEO of bluShift. “The team hit many milestones this year – we reached a performance milestone in our biofuel formulation, won a NASA grant, and began testing a larger engine that will power a Maine-made rocket in flight in the next 18-24 months.”
Tom Wright has been named Redeveloper of the Year for his work on several different properties at the former Naval Air Station Brunswick. Tom has purchased seven former Navy Buildings and converted them into thriving businesses. Tom’s projects include: Seeds of Independence, Bath YMCA, Flight Deck Brewing, Turtle Rock Farm Food Cannery and Preserves and The REAL School. Tom also assisted MRRA with the construction of the new Blue Dog Day Care facility.
“We’re very proud to have these businesses here at Brunswick Landing and to see them growing and succeeding with innovative ideas,” MRRA Executive Director Steve Levesque said. “They are truly helping us live up to our promise as Maine’s Center for Innovation.”
