MECHANIC FALLS — Justin Starbird left the state three days after playing in the Maine Shrine Lobster Bowl Classic football game for high school seniors vowing “never to return to Maine.”

“You think you’ve got to fly the coop,” said Starbird, 36. “You’ve got to see what’s outside Maine.”

He did. Then, seven years ago, he moved into a house eight miles away from where he grew up in Poland.

Is he happy about being back?

“No — thrilled to be here,” Starbird said.

In 2014, Starbird founded The Aebli Group, a marketing agency that works on web development, video production and graphic design. The agency is named after a businessman he met in Florida after leaving Maine in 2001, who became a great friend and mentor. (Aebli was his late friend’s last name, and is now also Starbird’s two daughters’ middle names.)

Starbird and his wife, Eliana, who is from Columbia, where living in Napa, California, when she wanted to make a move to be closer to family. Maine was the best option.

Once back, he started getting active in the town’s recreation program and is now in his second year as chair of the volunteer committee that runs the program.

Youth programming for sports like T-ball, soccer and basketball used to be for grades 3 to 6, he said.

“We expanded that down all the way to pre-K,” Starbird said. “It allowed all of the kids in the community the opportunity to play a sport. In the five years I’ve been involved, we’ve more than doubled the participation level.”

Starbird coaches youth basketball and softball, and plays himself in adult basketball leagues in Mechanic Falls and Auburn.

“There’s a lot of positives going for the town,” Starbird said. “That’s really exciting to be a part of it.”

kskelton@sunjournal.com

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