Steuben Selectman Larry Pinkham wants to give the younger generation a reason to stay in his Washington County town.

“We’re a town that loses our kids,” Pinkham said. “We have nothing here for them.”

That’s why he and the two other members of the select board are welcoming bluShift Aerospace to their lobster fishing community of 1,199. 

Founded in 1795 and named after German soldier Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, most of the jobs in town now rely on lobstering.

That could change in the coming years as bluShift, a Brunswick-based company that makes small rockets, looks to build a manufacturing plant and mission control that would oversee a launch pad two nautical miles offshore. 

The company chose Steuben after receiving a handful of applicants in response to a call for potential host communities.

Last year, bluShift CEO Sascha Deri announced his intention to locate operations in the towns of Jonesport and Beals Island. But local pushback led him to reconsider and open up his search. 

Deri needs a coastal location to launch his rockets into the polar orbit in which satellites rotate from the south pole to the north.

The company made headlines in January 2021 when it launched in Aroostook County what was described at the time as the world’s first biofueled commercial rocket with a payload. BluShift uses a proprietary blend of fuel that is non-toxic, carbon neutral and bio-derived.

“Traditional rockets are loud, they’re humongous, they’re polluting,” Deri said. “Ours is small, much less loud and not polluting.”

As he stood with Dyer Bay behind him, Deri pointed to one of the fishing piers in town that is strong enough to hold the rockets before they are loaded onto a boat and transported to the launch site. While the company secures land for its manufacturing plant and puts other parts of the business into motion, he anticipates launching only once or twice from Steuben in the next 18-24 months.

The company plans to use two rockets — the suborbital Starless Rogue, which is 50 feet tall and two feet in diameter and the orbital Red Dwarf, 75 feet tall and six feet in diameter. 

The payloads are small cubes, measuring about 4 inches on each side. The company will work with high schools and colleges conducting experiments and broadband, cellphone and earth imaging companies that need to launch into space.

A native of Orland and Bucksport, Deri sees the impact his company can have on a small town like Steuben. Over several years, he plans to bring 150-200 jobs to the area.

“I’m not the only one who came back to Maine,” he said. “That’s sort of the idea here, is to make not only something that is stretching humanities reach into the stars, but also giving young people an opportunity to consider other careers and stay home here in Maine. Good paying, exciting, high-tech jobs.”

Steuben lobsterman Blake Alley, a fourth-generation fisherman, said he’s eager to see some new economic development in his hometown — but not everyone is as excited.

“I’m enthusiastic about it,” he said. “The rest of the fishing community is heavily skeptical and nervous and pissed off and all the things that come with small towns. As far as I’m concerned, I try to have an open mind about it.”

From Alley’s perspective, the town needs to diversify, particularly with the pressure on the lobster fisheries from regulators interested in protecting endangered right whales. 

Those changes, combined with a new industry that’s never before operated in the area, have raised eyebrows in town.

Deri said he understands the worry and plans to work with the community. One way he could do that is by tailoring his manufacturing schedule to ramp up in winter when lobster fishing boats aren’t in the water to provide steady off-season income for locals. Another is to schedule launches at off-hours to steer clear of prime fishing times.

Those kinds of concessions were key to winning the support of Selectwoman Eve Parkin, who said she wasn’t sure at first whether to welcome bluShift to town. After several public meetings where Deri answered questions from townspeople, Parkin said she became convinced that he would bring the kinds of jobs the area needs.

As a mail carrier, Parkin said she’s got a good paying job with retirement and other benefits, something she’d like to see for her adult children.

“I really appreciate the way (Deri) wants to get the younger people involved and give them the option to get training or a career where they don’t have to leave home,” she said. “There aren’t a lot of jobs where kids can graduate high school and get on-the-job training.”

Pinkham, whose father also served on the town’s select board, said he understands the concerns raised by those who don’t like change or may be skeptical of bluShift. But he believes the company, and the good jobs that will come with it, will bring back a sense of dignity and pride to the town that’s been absent in recent decades.

“The old ways are gone,” he said. “I was always taught to respect your elders. The old ways were better.”