OBSERVER Photo by Damian Sebouhian Richard Dixon was appointed interim Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency.

Acting Chief Financial Officer for the Chautauqua County Industrial Development Agency Richard Dixon was appointed as interim director and CEO of the organization during a recent board of directors meeting.

The appointment comes less than a week after Kevin M. Sanvidge officially retired from the position. Dixon will fill both the CFO and CEO positions until a CEO is officially appointed, estimated to be a few months from now.

“This was a decision that was made by our current county executive (Vince Horrigan),” said County Executive-elect George Borrello. “Rich (Dixon) is a very capable guy. He’s been integral in helping me get prepared for my 100 businesses in 100 days visits. We’ve started (with visits) to a couple businesses already and Rich has coordinated those.”

Dixon, who has been acting CFO of the IDA for the past 12 years, expressed his excitement of acting as interim director and CEO.

“We’ll continue to march on, working on projects, visiting our businesses,” Dixon said.

“We’ve started visiting local businesses, reassuring them that the great work that’s been done under Vince Horrigan will continue under George and we’ll continue to support not only our manufacturers, but our commercial operations like tourism in Chautauqua County. It’s an exciting time.”

“For me, it was key to have an interim that is already intimately involved in the technical, administrative side of things, so Rich, in my opinion, is the perfect fit for that,” said Borrello. “He’ll be pulling a little bit of double duty for a couple of months as the Chief Financial Officer. It will give me the opportunity to get somebody in place to handle the position.”