RUMFORD — In less than a minute at a special board meeting on Friday afternoon in the town office conference room, selectmen unanimously hired longtime tax collector Carlo Puiia as town manager.

That ended a months-long process to find a successor to Interim Town Manager Len Greaney, who took over last summer after Town Manager Jim Doar resigned to take a job with Rumford paper mill NewPage Corp.

Just as quickly, the meeting was adjourned and Chairman J. Arthur Boivin and Selectmen Frank DiConzo and Mark Belanger went upstairs to congratulate Puiia. Selectmen Robert Cameron and Brad Adley left after the vote.

Puiia, however, will not be officially appointed and given a one-year probationary contract until after the town meeting municipal elections on June 9, Boivin said prior to the meeting.

When congratulated by the three town officials outside his tax collector office, Puiia ducked into his office to don a tie for media photographs.

“It’s rewarding, it truly is to have this support, not only from the public but also from the board,” Puiia said about being hired to manage Rumford. “My wife Paula was thrilled when she learned I got it. She was very happy.”

Selectmen would not say why they decided to hire Puiia. Both DiConzo and Boivin,however, did say that of the 24 people who applied for the job, selectmen went through each resume using a list of their own criteria to narrow the field to five people.

“It came down to who had the most check marks and then, what their top priorities would be, which got it down to the five,” DiConzo said.

Then, on Patriots Day Monday, selectmen interviewed four of the five, because one applicant removed himself from the process after getting hired elsewhere, Boivin said.

Puiia, who acknowledged he had no training as a town manager, thanked selectmen in a prepared statement “for placing their faith in my abilities to perform in this important leadership role.”

He said he would continue to serve as tax collector until June 9, at which point residents will choose another to fill that job.