University of Maine President Paul Ferguson has named Karlton Creech the new athletic director for the UMaine, a hiring that will be effective Feb. 10. Creech fills the vacancy left by former athletic director Steve Abbott, who worked in the position for three years. His contract expired in Dec. 2013 after signing a 6-month extension in June 2013.

“I am so pleased that Karlton will be joining the UMaine leadership team,” Ferguson said in a press release. “He brings to us a remarkable record of athletics leadership and management at the University of North Carolina, one of our nation’s great public research universities. His level of professionalism, coupled to his strong experience in fundraising and management, will no doubt move Black Bear Athletics to new levels of excellence and community engagement.”

Since 2012, Creech has served as the senior associate director of athletics at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Prior to that, he was the associate executive director for UNC’s Educational Foundation Inc., starting in 2004.

Creech was one of three finalists for the position to be interviewed by a UMaine search committee led by Robert Strong, a finance professor and NCAA faculty representative. Creech was selected over Scott Kull and Jim Herlihy, who grew up in Old Town and Millinocket, respectively.

“I would like to thank President Ferguson for entrusting me with the responsibility to lead UMaine Athletics,” Creech said in the press release. “President Ferguson’s Blue Sky thinking is inspiring, and I look forward to partnering in the achievement of his vision for the University of Maine to become the most distinctively student-centered and community-engaged of the American Research Universities.”