below the state average. In 1980, fifty-six Vinalhaven fishermen and other residents formed a cooperative to start a fish-processing plant on the island. A town bond issue helped build the plant, and CEI provided financing for equipment, working capital, and management training for the co-op members. Today, Vinalhaven's Penobscot Bay Fish and Cold Storage Company has about thirty-five year-round employees, most of them women who previously had no opportunities for employment. In addition, 128 fishermen derive income from their share in the plant.

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In the forest-products industry, CEI is helping a multiple sclerosis victim expand his family business. Unable to get a job because of his disability, John Stauffer started using scrap lumber to make replicas of the antique wooden bucket. The Maine Bucket Company now consists of two other employees besides Stauffer and his wife and two children. The company produces 600 buckets a week, which are sold in gift shops throughout the country. With CEI and Small Business Administration financing, Stauffer is acquiring new equipment that will cut bucket production time in half. By early spring of 1984, Stauffer expects to hire at least two more employees. He is looking for handicapped people.

Among CEI's new undertakings:

• Moss Tent Works, a company in Camden that designs and produces lightweight tents. Because of its reliance on the seasonal backpacking market, the company has to shut down for part of the year. With CEI assistance, Moss plans to develop and market a line of larger and heavier exhibit tents. The firm's expanded operations will enable the company to stay open longer and hire more people.

• Hanson Energy Products of Newcastle, which manufactures solar collectors for space heating. Last year Hanson's sales represented 21 percent of the solar space heating market in this country. With nineteen year-round workers, the firm is the third largest employer in town, after the hospital and lumber yard. With a CEI loan to expand its research and development activities, the company hopes to add six more workers over the next three years.

• North Whitefield Frameworks. In what used to be a poultry barn, two brothers, Ken and Eric Olsen, oversee production of more than 500,000 picture frames a year. Most of them are sold to amusement parks for framing pictures used as prizes at concessions. Three years ago the Olsens knew nothing about woodworking. Unemployed and willing to try anything that would generate income, they decided to frame and sell Norman Rockwell reproductions. An amusement park businessman ordered 1,500. To fill the order, the Olsens spent three months in the shop of a cabinetmaker friend learning basic woodworking. Today, with more than thirty employees, the Olsens have begun to diversify by producing revolving spice racks. They are installing a wood-scrap furnace to heat the barn and three-phase power so that the workers can run all the heavy machinery at once. A management consultant introduced to the Olsens by CEI is helping them expand production. "We will get into other wood products—higher-quality frames, maybe the toy market," says Eric Olsen. That kind of spirit typifies the entrepreneurs Coastal Enterprises is trying to help.