When Jedediah Talbot started his business as a professional trail builder in Maine in 2004, he had a hard time finding work in the state. For five years, he mostly got jobs in New Hampshire’s White Mountains.
“It was an uphill battle for a long time,” Talbot said. “It’s a viable industry now.”
Much has changed over two decades, but a major factor in recent years is the Maine Trails Program. In 2024, voters approved a historic $30 million bond for trails. The state awarded $7.5 million in grants last year and plans to announce a second round of awards this fall.
The infusion of money comes as the sector is growing and professionalizing nationally and in the state. Trail builders and stakeholders in Maine are talking about how to help people develop specialized skills and how to meet the demand that will come with future rounds of funding.
“That kind of investment in trails just creates this pipeline of trail projects, and that ultimately does create the growth,” said Aaryn Kay, executive director of the international Professional TrailBuilders Association.
‘We’re catching up’
Trail building has come a long way in Steve Kasacek’s career. He spent years working around the country in the mountain biking world and is now the trail development director of the Outdoor Sport Institute in Maine.
Kasacek learned from builders who told stories about pulling strings along topographical maps to determine the length of a trail — a far cry from the aerial maps and geographical information system data he uses on his computer today. While sustainable practices were already gaining ground, he described the methods of two decades past as “back of the napkin.”
“The way we approach trail development and trails management now is really more nuanced and complex and intentional than it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago,” he said.
The Professional TrailBuilders Association has grown to 150 or so member businesses, a 53% jump from 2018.
Association surveys show that employment among members went up 113% in that time, Kay said, and the average reported revenue per company also increased from $490,000 in 2018 to $1.47 million in 2025.
“It’s a very niche industry,” Kay said. “How do we build awareness that this is a viable, long-term career?”
The association is pushing for a standard occupational classification at the federal level for trail builders and developing credential programs that could be replicated across the country for workforce development, Kay said.
In New England — where trails often cut straight up a mountain, the construction season is short and volunteers have historically done the bulk of the work — builders said the industry has been slower to grow than in other regions.
“I think Maine is catching up to the rest of the country in terms of design standards, quality construction and thinking about alignments and the more sustainable route,” Erin Amadon, owner of Town 4 Trail Services in Troy, said. “We’re catching up, and we’re doing it at a good run.”
More possibilities
The Maine Trails Program is a major driver of that growth in the state. Some companies in Maine are adjusting to meet the swell of grant money. Many are fielding more calls about planning trails and developing materials for applications. Stuart Johnson, owner of Maine Trail Builders in Saco, said he hired a part-time GIS specialist to meet the demand.
The projects are changing, too. Johnson often works for private landowners, but because the Maine Trails Program is open to municipalities and nonprofits, he has more opportunities to work on public land. He said he has three clients who got grants in the first round in 2025 — the South Portland Land Trust, the city of Rockland and the Falmouth Land Trust.
“We love working with a lot of private landowners, but we also really want to make sure that the trails we love to build are able to be experienced by as many people as possible,” Johnson said.
The state grants are as big as $250,000. Many grantees said they would have scaled back their projects or not done them at all without this money. Talbot, for example, is replacing almost 1,000 feet of degraded bog bridging on a local trail in Lubec with a more accessible boardwalk for the Maine Coast Heritage Trust.
“We were able to think big, think comprehensively, think long term,” Talbot, who owns OBP Trailworks in Turner, said. “It’s really serving the state by allowing us to open our eyes to possibilities.”
The Maine Trails Program awarded 44 projects in the first round. Builders said they might not have the capacity to bid on every project they want to do in the future.
“There definitely will be some growing pains as we figure out the capacity to accomplish these projects, but I have hope that within our trail sector industry, that we’ll rise to meet those challenges,” Amadon said.
An opportunity for Maine
Because the state is required to spread the money across a wide range of uses, the selected projects will demand different skills. Some awarded in the first round required technical stonework in the backcountry, while others required work on bridges for ATVs and snowmobiles. Others focused on trails for mountain bikes or cross-country skiing, and many are making multiuse trails more accessible.
No matter the specifications, builders emphasized the need to look for professionals with the relevant expertise.
“You wouldn’t hire a trail builder to dig the foundation for your house, right?” Ryan Gates, stewardship program coordinator at the Coastal Mountains Land Trust, said. “Reciprocally, some of those excavation companies don’t belong building trails in the Maine woods.”
Gates is leading a working group at the Maine Trails Coalition to discuss what is needed to grow the profession in the state. He’s thinking about the not-so-distant future when the Maine Trails Program will run out of bond money. The state has until 2034 to spend it and can allocate up to $7.5 million in grants every year. If the high level of interest continues, however, the money will likely be gone by 2029. Officials and stakeholders are already talking about more sustainable funding sources.
“We have an opportunity right now with the money that’s available to do this really well and really high level,” Gates said. “This is an opportunity to really set ourselves up and bring ourselves to where other states are in terms of acknowledging that (trails) are a resource for the public.”
There are barriers to getting into the industry — the seasonality, the travel, the schedule, the physical demands. Builders in Maine described winding paths to their chosen profession and also said they are trying to smooth the way for others.
“One of my big hopes is that this will become a profession like any other profession, where you have both high standards that we hold ourselves to and simultaneously that it is a financially viable thing for people to do as a longer-term career,” Johnson said.
Right now, there’s also plenty of work.
“Pretty much every single person I know who does it is hiring,” Talbot said
This story was originally published by the Maine Trust for Local News. Megan Gray can be reached at mgray@pressherald.com.