DANVERS — If Orlando Pacheco is selected Rockport's next town administrator, he would strive to improve the community's information technology systems, aggressively pursue grants — and aim to keep politics out of the chief executive's daily decision-making processes.
The 31-year-old Danvers resident, one of three finalists for the job, interviewed with selectmen in that town Tuesday night.
Pacheco earned a bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a master's in public administration from the University of New Hampshire, and later served an internship in the Andover town manager's office.
Before landing the Lancaster job in 2005, Pacheco served as administrative assistant to the mayor of Amesbury.
Pacheco, a married father of an 8-month-old child, is under contract with Lancaster through June 30, 2011, and earns a salary of about $90,000. While some of his reasons for wanting to leave Lancaster are personal, he said, mainly he was inspired to look elsewhere by his desire to tackle new challenges and find an area where he could settle for the long term. He was granted a second contract by Lancaster selectmen in 2008.
Pacheco said he can be as strong or as weak a town administrator as the selectmen would like.
"I don't want to shake things up if I don't need to be," he said. "If the status quo is working, I'll just find my niche."
However, the status quo in Rockport is not necessarily what current selectmen would like to see continued, at least not in full. Several selectmen were pleased to hear Pacheco was a successful grants writer and is considered by many who work with him to be a uniter.
"The most attractive part of the job when I decided to go to Lancaster was the financial mess it was in," Pacheco said. "If you can sit people together in a room and they can talk, you get things done."
Lancaster Selectman Christopher Williams praised Pacheco.
"If Rockport gets Orlando, they're definitely going to get an asset," Williams said. "We're really happy with the progress he's had here. He's very young, and there are pros and cons; the pro is he's very eager, and the con is he's very eager."
Pacheco will have to wait at least another week before hearing if he will be hired for the position. Selectmen will interview Robert Canevazzi, most recently town administrator in the Cape Cod town of Dennis, and Ashby Town Administrator Linda Sanders.
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