MARIETTA - The Cobb school board unanimously agreed on Wednesday to hire a chief administrative officer for its Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax program.

Doug Shepard, a project engineer, was hired at a salary of $115,000 effective Sept. 14, and is filling a new position the board created in June. Shepard's last job was as a site development consultant for Greenberg Farrow in Atlanta from 2006 to May 2009.

Next to this position on his resume is listed the word "downsized."

"I would assume downsized means unemployed, but don't know for sure," said district spokesman Jay Dillon, adding that he could not provide Shepard's contact information.

Of the 128 people who applied for the position, 32 met the required qualifications, and 10 were invited for an interview based on their qualifications and construction experience. The panel that interviewed them consisted of Superintendent Fred Sanderson, Associate Superintendent Dr. Gordon Pritz, Human Resources Chief Dr. Donald Dunnigan; Carey Bell, an engineering review coordinator with the Gwinnett School District; and Walt Fairchild, construction coordinator with the Forsyth School District.

Shepard's experience includes an array of education construction projects, including the University of Georgia Student Learning Center, where he served as engineer of record, and more recently planning construction sites for Home Depot and other retail construction, including presenting plans to county commissions, city councils, planning commissions and other government agencies, Dillon said.

Sanderson said, "I am thrilled that we are able to bring on board someone with Doug's skills and experience. His background fits very well with the responsibilities we have defined for this new position. I am confident he will do a great job overseeing the planning, implementation and completion of SPLOST projects, exactly as promised to taxpayers."

According to background information provided by the school district, Shepard earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, though it does not say in what or when. He was a project engineer and surveyor for Miller Legg and Associates in Pembroke Pines, Fla., from 1995 to 1999; was project manager with Travis Pruitt and Associates in Norcross from 1999 to 2003; and served as vice president of development for Butler Properties in Atlanta from 2003 to 2006.

Sanderson, who has been reluctant to in-source SPLOST projects, presented the board with a plan for in-sourcing at its May 28 meeting, which he said calls for hiring 12 employees at a total cost of $9.13 million, a figure questioned by both Board Chairman Dr. John Abraham and the Rev. Dr. John Crooks. Abraham said the board's new SPLOST executive will help decide how the board carries out the remainder of its $420 million SPLOST III construction work.

As for whether the board opts to approve the rest of Sanderson's in-source plan, Dillon said Sanderson "presented a preliminary organizational plan to the board, but made it very clear he would need to sit down with the new program manager to discuss organization."

The board is already outsourcing three SPLOST III projects valued at $77.4 million. In May, the board hired Brookwood/PBS&J to oversee construction of the ninth-grade centers for North Cobb and South Cobb high schools and a replacement school for East Side Elementary for a fee of $998,800, or 1.3 percent.

Sanderson pointed out that percentage is significantly lower than the school district's previous program manager, the Facility Group, which charged 3 percent.

The Facility Group of Smyrna managed the school district's SPLOST I and II and were awarded about $22 million in fees for the job. Facility Group founder Robert Moultrie, a former Cobb Chamber of Commerce chairman, was intent on managing SPLOST III, but that plan hit a snag when he was ordered on Dec. 18 to serve 16 months in federal prison for his guilty plea to a charge of paying an illegal gratuity to a Mississippi governor. The payment was related to a Mississippi beef plant Moultrie's company helped build that left 400 people jobless and taxpayers with $55 million in state-backed loans.