Ex-Houlton manager leaving Retired Col. Bean tells Rotary Club he’ll seek work in Louisiana

HOULTON – Former Town Manager Allan Bean will be moving back home to the South.

Bean, who served as manager in Houlton from August 1994 until last December, made the announcement Monday afternoon at a meeting of the Houlton Rotary Club, of which he is a member.

A retired colonel in the U.S. Air Force, Bean became Houlton’s town manager after the resignation of R. Lewis Bone.

Bean resigned from that post last Dec. 26 after being informed that a majority of the members of the Town Council were prepared to vote him out of office.

No specific reasons were cited by the council for seeking the resignation, though one councilor expressed concern over the number of lawsuits that had been filed against the town while Bean was manager.

Since then, Bean has been looking for work, including in Louisiana and East Texas, where he is from. He recently returned from a trip to Louisiana, were he visited with family.

“I found a lot of job opportunities there that I’m not finding here,” he said during a telephone interview Monday. “Obviously, I need to be there to put in for them.”

Bean was the base commander for Loring Air Force Base when it was closed in 1994.

Joking about his move from there to Houlton, he said his wife, Charlie, told him that when he left Loring, she didn’t care where it was, as long as it was south.

“So I moved 65 miles south to Houlton,” he said.

“She followed me for 30 years in the Air Force and in Houlton,” he continued. “She deserves to make the call just once.

“I’m honoring my wife’s request and I’m not going to stop until I hit Louisiana,” he said with a laugh.

Though he is leaving, Bean admitted that it was a hard decision.

“I truly love the town of Houlton and I love the people here,” he said. “We have a son here and a granddaughter here, so we’ll be back.”