The Brewer School Department superintendent is retiring after nearly seven years and his replacement has already been hired.
Gregg Palmer’s last day as superintendent is June 30, he told the Bangor Daily News. His retirement marks the end of his 31-year career in public education.
The department has already hired his replacement, Palmer said. Taking over the role is Dan Chadbourne, the director of pupil services for the Bangor School Department.
“He has worked in several roles over the years there in the Bangor School Department and will be terrific in the superintendency,” Palmer said.
Palmer, a Carmel native, started his career in Brewer in 1994. He worked as a high school special education teacher until 2002. He spent the next 17 years as a principal for three different Maine high schools.
He returned to Brewer schools in 2019 to work as the superintendent, a move that was a homecoming, he told the BDN at the time.
During his tenure, Palmer kept the school’s budget increase to roughly 4% a year, a 10-year trend, according to the city of Brewer.
This spring the department settled a two-year old lawsuit for $350,000, where neither side admitted liability. It followed a lawsuit from now-deceased local conservative activist Shawn McBreairty over an online post McBreairty published in February 2024 about girls’ bathrooms not being safe if males are present. It had a picture of students in a Brewer High School bathroom, including a transgender student.