 In 1960, Robert Stenger established the company based at the Knox County Regional Airport in Rockland, Maine.The fixed base operator started as Mid-Coast Airways and later changed its name to Downeast Airlines which was inspired by the area of Maine from around Bar Harbor northeast up the coast to the Canada–US border that has been known for at least two centuries as "Downeast Maine".After leaving the US Army as a sergeant in the mid-1950s and using his Veterans Administration educational benefits to pay for flight lessons, Stenger received his commercial pilot's license and later started the company.