FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Portland, Maine) The Maine Center for Entrepreneurial Development (MCED) announces the opening of the application process for its Top Gun program, Class of 2011.

This year, in collaboration with the University of Maine’s Target Technology Center and the Foster Center for Innovation, and with funding from Maine Technology Institute (MTI), the program has expanded statewide to reach even more Maine based companies.

The program model has been so successful that Past Top Gun graduates have received over $1.1 million dollars in grant funding from the Maine Technology Institute alone. Additionally, since 2009, Top Gun graduate companies have created over 95 Maine jobs.

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ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Top Gun is a seven-month program that accelerates the progress of Maine’s most promising early stage, scalable, innovation-based businesses through a combination of curriculum, mentoring and community. First offered in 2009, it will run simultaneously in Portland and Bangor beginning in September 2011. An advisory board made up of private sector professionals and successful entrepreneurs will carefully consider each application looking to indentify the state’s “best of the best” innovative entrepreneurs and partner them with Maine’s most seasoned professionals.

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ABOUT MCED

MCED is a private, not-for-profit 501-c-3 organization created to establish an environment where small companies, start-ups and first-time entrepreneurs can grow, prosper and successfully commercialize their technology in southern Maine. As Maine’s first business incubator, MCED was created out of the Portland Regional Chamber in 1997 to be a model of excellence for nurturing entrepreneurs, launching successful start-up companies and implementing innovation as an economic development tool for Maine. Additional information about Top Gun, including a complete list of guidelines and the online application may be viewed at http://www.topgunmaine.biz.

CONTACT: Don Gooding

 228-8525

dgooding@mced.biz