AUBURN – Glenn Aho expects his first few official days in Auburn to be a blur.

There will be meetings after meetings, names to learn and a new city character to absorb.

“Right now, it’s all about learning and observing,” said Aho, Auburn’s new city manager. “It’s too soon to make any assumptions about anything going on, while I’m in that learning and observing period.”

Aho began his term as the head of Auburn’s municipal government Tuesday morning, meeting with department heads, union officials and city councilors.

He’ll finish his first week by introducing himself to local community groups, including the Androscoggin County Chamber of Commerce, the Auburn Housing Authority and the Lewiston-Auburn Economic Growth Council. He’ll attend his first City Council meeting at 7 p.m. Monday.

He’s not above asking for the names of people he should meet and talk with, to get the background history and the untold story of Auburn. It’s all about getting a handle on his new city and figuring out how to fit in.

“You can usually tell people from away because they come out with all these ideas that won’t work or haven’t worked,” he said. “That’s one of the key things I’ve learned, is to fit in. You need to learn about the culture here to find out what the people want, and what they expect. And it’s different from Lincoln, even though it’s only 160 miles away.”

Aho, 38, grew up in Bridgewater, a town with about 635 people in Aroostook County. He has an undergraduate degree from the University of Maine at Presque Isle and a master’s degree in public administration from the University of Maine. Before taking the job in Lincoln, he worked as an administrative assistant to the Brewer city manager.

He became the town manager of Lincoln in 1995, when the town needed someone to manage the departments and act as a buffer between the department heads and the Town Council.

“Because of poor management, we had councilors trying to manage individual departments,” Aho said. “We had councilors actually beating department heads up at meetings. That’s where my role had to be, in between the two.”

It made for some difficult first years.

“But we made it up by being transparent,” he said. “We told people what we were doing, what was actually going on.”

He promises to run an exceptionally open government.

“It’s important to stay ahead of the curve, letting people know what’s going on,” he said. “If they don’t really know, they’ll make it up on their own, whether it’s right or wrong.”