Berkshire County — Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC) Executive Director Thomas Matuszko will retire in March, confirmed the organization’s chairperson Malcolm Fick. The announcement was made at BRPC’s October 16 annual meeting, Fick said. Of his 28-year tenure, Matuszko has served the last seven years at the group’s helm. He is only the second person to hold the top title since the organization was founded in 1966 by Berkshire County’s 32 municipalities “to prepare a comprehensive plan of development,” according to the BRPC website.
As executive director, Matuszko oversees the agency’s operations, representing it in local, regional, state and and federal endeavors as well as managing the department’s staff, budget, and finances.
“We have begun a search to find the next executive director,” Fick said. Although Matuszko prefers to leave the organization in March, he is flexible on that date as officials seek to enlist his replacement.
At the Commission’s next Executive Committee meeting scheduled for November 6, members will be asked to form a search committee, including a chairperson, Fick said, and the group is researching whether the action can be taken at the next Executive Committee meeting or whether a full commission is needed for the measure. “But, by the end of November, we’ll have a search committee, and we’ll have a chairman of the committee and members assigned,” he said.
Fick was certain a call for applicants would be publicized widely in magazines and newspapers but noted that remains the work of the search committee.
“We’re still in the stage of determining exactly what we need to do and how,” Fick said. Should Matuszko leave office before a replacement is found, Fick said that function would fall to BRPC Assistant Director and Economic Development Program Manager Laura Brennan.
“We’re hoping to get done with the process in about six months on the outside, three or four months on the inside,” he said.
For Fick, Matuszko’s efforts have been crucial to moving the organization forward. “Tom has done a terrific job,” he said. “The BRPC has grown multiple times under Tom’s leadership, and a lot of that has to do with his ability to hire really good people and their ability to put the organization in a position to get grants—federal, state, and local grants for the towns.”
BRPC Treasurer and Executive Committee member John Duval has also recently resigned as he retired from his job and desires to spend more time with family, Fick said. However, that departure will not have a bearing on the organization’s operations, he said. “Their roles are different, and I don’t think they’ll impact one another,” Fick said.
The work BRPC performs for its member municipalities comes at a small fee to the towns it represents, he said. “So, the leverage that the towns get out of the BRPC is amazing, and a lot of that is to Tom’s credit,” Fick said.
Attempts to contact Matuszko were not responded to by press time.
