Leaned back behind his new desk in the basement of the Caribou Courthouse, Justin Tibbetts recalled childhood visits to Aroostook County.
“I saw the Harlem Globetrotters up here one time,” he said, thinking back to joining his father, an Air Force recruiter, on trips to the former Loring Air Force Base. “I’ve been up here a few times to The County. It’s a little bit farther north than I’m used to being.”
Tibbetts, 43, is Aroostook County’s new administrator, taking over in late May after a monthslong search to replace Ryan Pelletier, who left the role in January.
Tibbetts has not lived in Maine since he was in middle school, when his father’s military career moved his family to New Jersey. But — as he’s quick to remind you — he’s very much still a Mainer. Born in Brunswick, raised in Bath, he’s faithfully visited about three times a year his entire life, he said.
Now, after a winding two-decade-long career in county government in central and northwest New Jersey, he’s at the helm of Maine’s northernmost county.
“This really felt comfortable. It felt like home,” Tibbetts said in a recent interview with the Bangor Daily News. “Everyone was welcoming, and it kind of reminds me here of the old Maine — like 20 years ago Maine — before all the hustle and bustle everywhere, before all the developments and things were being built.”
Charles Tibbetts, Justin Tibbetts’ grandfather, served 20 years on the Bath City Council from the 1980s into the early 2000s. Growing up, Justin watched the council’s debates on public access TV.
“I kind of got a knack for politics through him, and for government and public service,” Tibbetts said.
After graduating high school, Tibbetts worked for Mercer County — the region that includes Trenton, New Jersey’s capital — for about 10 years. He became the superintendent of buildings and grounds for Hunterdon County in 2014, a position he held for another decade until taking over as director of parks and facilities in the more northern Warren County.
In the most densely populated state in the U.S., Hunterdon and Warren counties are relative outliers, among New Jersey’s most rural counties. Still, they each boast populations roughly double that of Aroostook County (67,105 people) in areas that are 15 to 19 times smaller.
Tibbetts pointed to similarities in the infrastructure and transportation networks of the regions that he believes will allow his experience to translate to northern Maine.
“When I was interviewing for this job, one of the things I kind of led with was that yes, there are rural counties in New Jersey, if you can believe it,” he said. “Some of the issues are very similar.”
Among the biggest challenges Tibbetts foresees in his new job is the County’s effort to replace its 137-year-old jail, which corrections experts have called overcrowded and unsafe. County Commissioners hired an architecture firm to design a new facility in late May, but rising construction prices could push the cost of a new jail north of $100 million.
“The correctional facilities I’ve worked at in the past or managed in the past were circa 1980,” Tibbetts said. “I know the problems that we had with those facilities, so I can only imagine what the officers and our maintenance team is dealing with in that older facility.”
Laid out on his desk were plans for a new fire station in Sinclair, a village within Aroostook’s vast unorganized territory that is overseen by the county. It’s another needed facility upgrade the county is moving forward with, and something Tibbetts said he is “really excited by.”
“With my facilities background in construction, I do think that I have a great strength to be able to leverage some of my abilities to help the county kind of push these projects forward in partnership with our constituents,” he said.
At the same time, as county and municipal budgets rise statewide and average Mainers are finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet, administrators — a county’s top appointed official — are forced to walk a tightrope to maintain service without overburdening taxpayers.
In 2018, Tibbetts ran as the GOP nominee for a seat in the New Jersey State Assembly on a platform of property tax relief. Eight years later in his new unelected position, the tax hikes gripping some residents are something he said he’s aware of.
“We’re taking a deep dive into those things right now and looking at all options and what we can do to help all the taxpayers in this county,” Tibbetts said.
In just his third week on the job, the longtime public servant is still transitioning into the role. But Tibbetts credited Dana Gendreau, the county’s finance director and interim administrator from January to May, for helping him get his bearings.
“I don’t think I would be successful if it wasn’t for her support,” he said.
Tibbetts lives in Caribou with his wife, Amy, and identical 10-year-old twin sons, Charles and Jordan. The family has a three-year-old bernedoodle named Tucker.
