ARICHAT: Richmond County’s new Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) will be on the job at the beginning of 2018.
On October 23, during the monthly meeting of Richmond Municipal Council, Warden Brian Marchand announced the appointment of Kent MacIntyre as CAO and confirmed MacIntyre will be starting in the position as of January 1, 2018 and interim CAO Louis Digout will be leaving in early January.
“We’re very pleased with him,” Marchand said of MacIntyre, a native of the Cape Breton Regional Municipality.
The warden explained that Digout reviewed the 46 applications for the post, then provided councillors with the names of the top four candidates. Of those candidates selected to be interviewed for approximately an hour and 30 minutes, two were from Richmond County and two from other parts of Cape Breton.
“I don’t think there was any mindset for not picking someone from Richmond County,” Marchand said.
A graduate from Saint Mary’s University with an MBA, MacIntyre began his career at the Cape Breton Development Corporation. After several years with CBDC, MacIntyre moved to Pugwash as the vice-president of operations for Seagull Pewter Ltd., and within two years, became the Chief Executive Officer.
Years later, MacIntyre moved into the position of Chief Executive Officer of Novapet Inc., a post-consumer plastics company in Amherst and before moving to Saint John, he owned and operated his own construction company in Sackville, New Brunswick.
For the last eight years, MacIntyre has served as general manager with the Saint John Development Corporation. He also served a term as Deputy Mayor and Acting Mayor in the former City of Sydney and has experience working with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia governments, as well as the Government of Canada.
“It’s hard to tell by speaking with someone for an hour-and-a-half, two hours, what they are so we are just going to hope that we made a good decision based on the amount of time we got to spend with this gentleman and the references we that we have from him, and what he’s done…,” the warden added.