It seems hard to believe nearly two years have passed since Brunswick Naval Air Station closed.

As we look forward to the warmer weather and green growth of spring, we see a much improved situation from June 2011, when the Navy started handing the keys to the former base over to the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority to begin execution of the NASB Reuse Master Plan.

MRRA’s primary mission includes replacing the economic impact from the loss of nearly 5,000 military personnel and civilian jobs.

While it will take some time to realize this goal, it’s important to note some of the amazing progress we’ve made in a very short time, and to point out some of the exciting new companies doing business at Brunswick Landing.

There are now 23 entities doing business at Brunswick Landing. Seven of our current major tenants are companies that are brand-new to Maine.

These are world-class companies — the kind of businesses that will create good jobs for the region and help build Maine’s next economy right here in Brunswick.

— Kestrel Aviation: This company, launched by former CEO Alan Klapmeier, is designing and building a new carbon composite single-engine turboprop aircraft in Maine and Wisconsin.

Based in Hangar 6, Kestrel currently has 45 employees and a payroll of nearly $3 million. Kestrel has tapped into Southern Maine Community College’s composites and advanced technology certification program, and the University of Maine engineering school, for some of its talent.

— Mölnlycke Health Care: On March 15, MRRA finished construction of a new, state-ofthe art 79,000-square foot manufacturing facility and turned it over to Mölnlycke Health Care, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of medical devices and wound care products.

Mölnlycke’s $50 million Brunswick facility will be fully operational by the end of the summer. With that comes an initial 50 new high-tech jobs, with dozens more new positions in the pipeline.

— American Bureau of Shipping: ABS is an international trade organization in Houston, Texas, with major corporate offices in London, Shanghai and Singapore. ABS provides a broad array of services, including marine surveying, engineering and auditing, to the international shipping and offshore industries.

ABS has approximately 30 employees working at its new computerized maritime modeling facility at Brunswick Landing.

— Integrated Marine Systems: IMS’s Brunswick Air Sea Integration Center provides marine system design, engineering and integration services to military and commercial customers in Hangar 5. IMS specializes in the design and construction of innovative product prototypes for turnkey marine applications.

— Oxford Networks: Oxford Networks has set up a unique, high-security data center housed in the Navy’s former wing headquarters and communications center.

Occupying what was once a hardened national security facility, the center boasts 52,000 square feet of space, dualperimeter fences, 24/7 onpremise monitoring, 24 raised anti-static floors, and a Coolcentric cooling system — all making it the most secured data center in the Northeast.

In addition, the facility offers multiple discrete paths to major network backbones, including robust bandwidth availability exceeding 10 Gbps.

Oxford Networks currently has 17 employees based at Brunswick Landing, plus numerous contractors.

— Flight Level Aviation: Flight Level Aviation is the fixed-base operator for Brunswick Executive Airport. The company provides a full menu of aviation services, including aircraft refueling, hangar and tie-down management for based and transient aircraft, concierge services for pilots and passengers, as well as a flight school, maintenance and rental car services through affiliates.

Flight Level has six employees based in its Hangar 6 facility.

— SaviLinx: A day before Mölnlycke received the keys to its new building, MRRA inked a lease with SaviLinx, a new customer contact center business launched by Heather Blease, the former CEO of EnvisioNet.

Blease expects to initially hire approximately 100 new employees for her business, which will fill the top floor of Tech Place at 74 Orion St. SaviLinx will rely on cloud-based infrastructure to facilitate operations.

We’re not only attracting new companies. We’re also working with Maine-based entrepreneurs and local property developers to repurpose Brunswick Landing and Topsham Commerce Park from military to civilian use.

Auburn-based George Schott, who owns the former base housing, is acquiring the former hotel and bachelor enlisted quarters, and is proposing to acquire additional acreage for commercial development.

Topsham-based developer Jim Howard’s Priority Group has agreed to purchase two lots and accompanying buildings — the former Navy Lodge and the Entertainment and Recreation Center, as well as land along Admiral Fitch Avenue — to develop for retail, office space and a school for autistic children.

Tom Wright has agreed to purchase a lot containing the former Navy personnel center’s criminal investigation office, where it plans to open a facility for troubled youths called Seeds of Independence, plus another commercial tenant.

Another project we’re excited about is focused on renewable energy. We’re working with Village Green Ventures, a New York-based company, to build an anaerobic digester that would eventually generate up to 2 megawatts of power using organic waste materials.

This would be the second such power plant in Maine. A similar system has been successfully launched at Stonyvale Farm in Exeter, producing 22,000 kilowatt hours of power and enough heat to replace 700 gallons of heating oil every day.

And at the Topsham Commerce Park, we are negotiating terms with a quality developer who wants to redevelop the former commissary and surrounding properties.

Effective base redevelopment is a complex, cumbersome process that takes many years to come to full fruition.

While we certainly have a long way to go before we reach our reuse goals, we are very pleased with the progress to date and the nature of the exciting new companies that are now calling Brunswick home.

Nearly 200 new jobs have been created to date, with more than 600 in the pipeline.

And more than $800,000 in new property tax revenues have been paid to the towns of Brunswick and Topsham — just this fiscal year — as a result of the redevelopment efforts.

Because of these accomplishments, we’ve been informed by federal defense officials that the Brunswick redevelopment effort is outperforming most other base redevelopment projects of similar scope nationally.

STEVE LEVESQUE is executive director of the Midcoast Regional Redevelopment Authority.