The Commonwealth Regional Council voted unanimously at Wednesday’s monthly meeting to promote Acting Executive Director Melody Foster to the position of executive director.

“I just want to appreciate the board’s trust in me to move the organization forward,” Foster said. “I’ve now been with this council 31 years actually, so for the last five months I’ve been the acting executive director, and I look forward to being, you know, full time the executive director and hopefully adding some other staff in the near future to help grow our organization, and we look forward to working with the region.”

She said at the moment the change from the temporary position of acting executive director to the permanent position of executive director won’t bring a lot of changes as far as day-to-day operations go.

“As I work with the board, we hope to maybe make some expansion of services,” Foster said.

Foster was appointed to the acting executive director role May 17 following the resignation of former CRC Executive Director Mary S. Hickman who’d been with the agency for about 27 years.

At the time of Foster’s appointment, Prince Edward County Buffalo District Supervisor C.R. “Bob” Timmons Jr., who represents the county on the CRC board, said a “new direction” of the council is that it wants to be the go-to organization that is known in the community for grant writing and grant management services.

“That’s a different direction than what we currently have been going down,” Timmons said. “The board is in the process of changing that direction (with) new directives, new personnel and to become better known as a service organization rather than a quasi-government organization that’s sitting over here waiting for someone to knock on the door.”

He said the council is going to go out and knock on the doors and become a service organization for localities’ membership.
“And that’s different,” Timmons said.

Foster formerly held the role of regional planner, a position that will now need to be filled following her appointment to executive director.