Who got that job?

Were you one of the people who applied for this job and wondered who got it?

Job title: Chief executive, Opotiki District Council.

Patrick Gargiulo can't imagine working anywhere but local government. "I see myself as a local government professional," he says.

"It's a very rewarding and satisfying industry to work in. The breadth of operations means that it can be a fun environment and a challenging environment, and you're close to the community."

Nelson-born Gargiulo, aged 47, got into the field in the early 1990s "by accident" in a finance role for Wellington City Council. He later moved on to economic development and asset management positions there.

He then spent a year in Fiji, mentoring the newly appointed CEO of the Suva City Council, "who was very willing to learn", and working on the council's policies and practices. He flew out just a week before George Speight's May 2000 coup, "which was very lucky".

When the Opotiki job came up, Gargiulo, who has a Canterbury honours degree in economics, had spent two years as a mostly self-employed financial adviser. He found himself weighing up two scenarios: "the option of being a second-tier manager in a large local authority or chief executive of a smaller one".

So what tipped him to the latter? "It comes back to the rewards that the job has," he says. "Local authorities touch in so many ways every day, and it's a concrete and tangible thing you're doing."

Small is, of course, a relative concept: the council's income is $7 million annually, and it serves 10,000 people.