At least three days a week before the sun rises, Dan Foster pulls out of his driveway in Fort Fairfield and makes the hour-and-20-minute trek north to Madawaska, where he is — for the moment — the town manager.
Foster spent a good portion of his career in municipal government. He was Fort Fairfield’s town manager for 15 years beginning in 1998. When he retired in 2013, he never thought he would return to the job.
But inexplicably, at 75 years old, here he is. Foster was hired in mid-September as the interim manager of the Canadian border town that has been in turmoil for the last month as its Select Board works to fire the town’s full-time manager over financial transgressions, among other controversies.
It’s not the first crisis Foster has navigated. In fact, it’s the fourth time he’s been an interim manager in the last four years.
“My brother goes, ‘You’re going to do this again? Seriously?’” Foster said in an interview Wednesday.
In an era where political polarization has permeated every level of Maine politics, town managers — who are unelected nonpartisan public servants — have been pulled into the fray. Foster has acted as a single-man bullpen for communities in need of a stopgap.
“I really enjoy the challenges of problem solving, of working with the department heads, with the employees, with the board, with community members. I find it energizing,” he said. “At 75, it gives me purpose. And that’s pretty cool.”
To the world of municipal managers, Foster is Dennis Eckersley, a successful starting pitcher who became a dominant reliever in the later stages of his career.
When he stepped back onto the mound in 2022, it was to help Fort Fairfield out of a bases-loaded, no-outs jam. The town faced more than $1.2 million in short-term debt and had less than $200,000 in the bank. Property taxes had increased by an average of 36% and threatened to climb higher.
Over more than a year, he guided Fort Fairfield out of the red. The town made drastic, “painful” budget cuts to its library, parks and recreation department, and EMS services — a source of the debt. But at the end of the 2022-23 fiscal year, it reached a budget surplus, an audit found.
“Dan really kind of took on the crisis and made it so that it didn’t feel like everything was absolutely on fire,” said Timothy Goff, a former Fort Fairfield town manager who was both preceded and succeeded by Foster. “I think that was really the key for me transitioning into that role.”
Six months after Foster stepped aside in Fort Fairfield, Madawaska’s Select Board was looking for an interim leader. The town’s manager, and a selectman, had resigned in quick succession following tumult over pay for public works employees and an ensuing staffing crisis. Their solution? Foster.
“We owe a lot of credit [to] Mr. Dan Foster over here for taking Madawaska under his wings and doing so much,” former Select Board Chair Jason Boucher said at a meeting five months later, after the town hired a permanent manager. “Dan came here, and it wasn’t just to fill a seat. It wasn’t just to help us along. Dan came here and he took Madawaska personally.”
Early last year, Goff resigned as Fort Fairfield’s manager. The town again hired Foster, who worked in the interim from March to June of 2025. He went back to his retired life on Monson Pond, a quiet neighborhood in southern Fort Fairfield that he calls “the most amazing place.”
That lasted more than a year. But this fall, Madawaska needed him for a second stint, and Foster heeded the call.
“I really thought that, ‘You know, Foster, maybe it’s time to frickin’ slow down. I mean, you’re really getting up there in age,’” Foster said of himself. “But I couldn’t say no to Madawaska. I just couldn’t.”
Foster, who owned a furniture store and worked as commercial loan officer, among other careers, didn’t enter government until he was 47, but said he felt like he was “made for” the job of town manager.
“To me, it’s never about how much I know. It is, ‘Who do I know that knows, and do I have the brains to go to somebody who has the expertise and take their damn advice,’” Foster said.
In an interim role, that principle remains the same, albeit with a slightly different focus.
“I’m not here to set policy or to look at long-term goals and objectives for the community,” Foster “I’m here to maintain the status quo, keep things running smoothly.”
He is cognizant of the vitriolic political climate that has caused some of Maine’s manager turnover, but the partisanship doesn’t get to him. As Goff put it, “Dan’s got pretty tough skin.”
Foster stays off social media, he said. And as an interim manager, he’s willing to wade into difficult issues that may create residual fallout for himself, in order to set up the next permanent manager in a better position.
“I have never found it that emotionally wearing on me as a person,” Foster said. “I’ve had people mad to hell at me. It’s OK. It doesn’t impact me that way … even taking into consideration how contentious the world is, my experience dealing with people one-on-one is fine.
“I find the vast majority of the people good people. They’re just trying to get by, and we have so many things coming at us, from so many different directions.”
Foster enjoys his retired life. But he also appreciates coming out of the bullpen from time to time to fill an increasingly challenging public service role. He’s even OK with ridiculous baseball analogies. “Just don’t compare me to [Bill] Buckner,” he said.
“I don’t know how much longer it’s going to be before I’m over in Riverside Cemetery,” Foster said. “But in the meantime, I want to enjoy every single waking moment that I have.”