As a small business owner, I don’t typically wade into politics. I’m focused on ensuring my employees are paid, I grow a successful business, and my products are of high quality and made with the integrity that Maine businesses are known for.

But I am writing to speak directly to fellow business owners or people hoping against all odds to build a business of their own. We cannot survive Donald Trump’s economy. In 2007, when a grassroots group of us founded the Kneading Conference and more Maine farmers began to grow wheat, they needed basic infrastructure to mill those grains into flour. I had no experience, but I knew if we could bring farmers, millers, bakers, researchers and oven builders together, we could find a way to revitalize Maine’s grain economy.

What I realized, and Donald Trump has yet to understand, is that Mainers are stronger together. My business partner, Michael Scholz, and I took a chance in 2009 and bought the former Somerset County Jail for $65,000 to repurpose it into a mill for processing grain. We now purchase grains from more than a dozen Maine farmers to manufacture locally grown, stone-milled grain flour and rolled oats that we sell all over New England.

By capitalizing on our strengths and addressing the gaps in what our community needed, we built a business that has strengthened our local community, the economy and our state. We have worked together with many individuals and organizations to launch a business that would benefit Maine.

Hillary Clinton is the presidential candidate that will allow us to continue to build upon our diverse strengths. We have everything we need right here in Maine and across our country to build an economy that makes stable employment, health and happiness a reality, not only for us, but for our children. Hillary Clinton’s 100-day jobs plan to make the biggest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II is evidence that she believes in my strength as a business owner and our capacity as a nation to innovate, expand and grow.

Maine’s traditional industries are becoming obsolete. In the past two years alone, five pulp and paper mills have closed. More than 1,500 hard-working Mainers who had invested their lives into those mills deserve new jobs. We need a plan to harness the capital we have — hardworking, industrious people — and adapt to the 21st century by creating high-paying jobs that sustain our economy for years to come.

Hillary Clinton’s plan would make the critical investments in infrastructure rural communities like Skowhegan desperately need, including rebuilding Maine’s roads, bridges and airports and connecting Maine businesses to broadband access.

There are still people who make things in America. At Maine Grains we work hard to use grains from Maine farmers. We employ people in our community and sell a nutritious product to the people of Maine and New England. We do it not because it’s the easiest thing to do, but because it is the right thing to do for our state’s economy.

Only one candidate is committed to making things in America, and she’s as focused as I am about the things we do right in our communities. We need her to help us move our country forward together.

Donald Trump’s divisive politics would leave my business, my employees, and our community behind. It is our choice. Our decision. Please, join me in supporting Hillary Clinton and an economy that works for Maine.

Amber Lambke is the president and CEO of Maine Grains, located at the Somerset Grist Mill in Skowhegan.

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