Family, friends try to remain hopeful as search continues for missing Harvard Business School student in Portland, Maine

By Martin Finucane, Globe Staff

Police in Portland, Maine, are investigating the disapearance of a 31-year-old Harvard Business School student who was last seen in the Old Port section early Sunday morning.

Nathan G. Bihlmaier of Cambridge was with friends. They reported him missing when he failed to return to his hotel room, police said in a statement.

Police have checked the area along the waterfront and police divers searched the area near State Pier, the statement said. Divers continue to search today. The Coast Guard and harbormaster are also searching.

Harvard Business School spokesman Brian Kenny said in a telephone interview from Portland that Bihlmaier, who hailed from Kansas, was last seen at a bar called Ri Ra on the waterfront.

Kenny said a number of students from the school, as well as Bihlmaier’s parents and his wife, who is expecting their first child, were all in Portland today.

“Everybody’s really trying to remain hopeful that this will turn out well,” he said.

Bihlmaier had finished the school’s two-year program and was about to receive his degree on Thursday, Kenny said.

Kenny said Bihlmaier had already started a job since classes at the school ended, at a health care firm in Boston in the area of health care technology.