After spending five years in Chapel Hill, Economic Development Officer Dwight Bassett is moving on to bigger places — only about 40 minutes up the road.
Bassett has resigned from his current job and accepted a newly created economic development manager position in Raleigh.
Bassett will make about $9,619 more at his new job, which he begins March 26.
But he said he was motivated to make the change by the new challenges and opportunities that Raleigh offers.
Mitchell Silver, the chief planning and development officer in Raleigh, said an Office of Economic Development was created last year and Bassett is the first hire.
“Different people did different functions, but this office now centralizes all those functions,” said Silver.
Bassett said he was also the first to be hired as economic development officer in Chapel Hill in 2007.
“Chapel Hill had never engaged in a conversation about economic development,” Bassett said. “I was the first to fill that position.”
During his five-year tenure in Chapel Hill, Bassett led two major development projects.