RANDOLPH — The Selectboard has chosen a Springfield, Vt., native with a long record of service to municipal governments as the next Randolph town manager.
Trevor M. Lashua, who is currently the town administrator in Waitsfield, Vt., will begin work on April 12. He will overlap for two weeks with his predecessor, Adolfo Bailon.
“He has a fair amount of experience with town government already,” Trini Brassard, chair of the Randolph Selectboard, said Monday.
The board conducted a series of interviews with candidates and chose Lashua out of the final group.
“We just had great interviews with him,” Brassard said. His personality seems to fit well with the town and he has “all the qualities that we were hoping to find,” she said.
Lashua, 44, said the job appeals to him because Randolph encompasses both a downtown and rural areas and a manager has to find ways to serve them both. It’s also a step up, professionally. With a population of almost 4,800, Randolph is more than twice as large as Waitsfield.
“It’s a nice opportunity to take my experience and education and take that professional development step” into a larger role, he said Monday.
Lashua holds a master of public administration degree from the University of Vermont and has worked in local government for nearly 17 years, first with the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, where he advocated for municipalities at the Vermont Statehouse. He served as assistant town manager in Essex, then as town administrator in Hinesburg for nearly four years before taking the job in Waitsfield in 2017. He lives in Montpelier with his wife, Kelly Murphy, and young sons Jack and Hank.
Brassard said the town is on solid footing. Bailon has served for three-and-a-half years. Under Lashua, who will start at $85,000 a year, town officials hope to work on capital planning, economic development and improvements to the town’s water and wastewater systems.
“We have some parts of town where we want to expand water and sewer, mostly for economic development,” Brassard said.
“I’m fortunate to be coming in with that solid baseline,” Lashua said.
Alex Hanson can be reached at ahanson@vnews.com or 603-727-3207.
