The village of West Salem has hired its next public works director and he will begin on Monday.

Scott Halbrucker will become the village’s second public works director. The Palmyra, Wis., man was among 18 who applied for the job and was one of four finalists.

The West Salem Finance and Personnel Committee offered the job to Halbrucker — the superintendent of public works for the village of Palmyra — and the village board approved the decision on July 1 in a 3-1 vote.

“You just ask all the questions and he just came to the top,” said finance and personnel committee member and village board Trustee Diana Engel. “I’m positive he’ll be a good fit for the village.”

The village began searching for a new public works director in May when 11-year director Wade Peterson resigned to take a job as building and grounds supervisor with the Wisconsin Department of Military Affairs at Camp Williams at Volk Field in Camp Douglas. Peterson was the village’s first public works director.

Halbrucker, 42, said he looks forward to his new position with West Salem, and his first order of business is to familiarize himself with the village’s public works system.

“I’m excited, nervous ... but I like the challenge to see if I can do it,” said Halbrucker, who will be moving to the area with his wife Jane. “I want to be able to learn (West Salem’s public works) system and go from there. It’ll probably take me a couple months just to learn the system and how they do things and see what I can do to make things run more efficiently and help them.”

Halbrucker, originally from Mukwonago, Wis., has been with the Palmyra Public Works Department since 1991. Halbrucker said he got into the public works field by chance but has enjoyed it ever since. He had been working at a restaurant and left, but a friend of his — who was then the head of Palmyra’s public works — had an opening and thought Halbrucker would be a good fit.

“I figured I needed a job and took it and the rest is kind of history,” Halbrucker said.

Since then, Halbrucker has gone on to be a certified wastewater treatment plant operator and holds license certification in groundwater, distribution, ponds, activated sludge, disinfection and laboratory analysis. Since 2004, he has led Palmyra’s Public Works Department, which consists of three full-time employees, one part-time employee and one seasonal employee.

Halbrucker said he has enjoyed working in public works because of the diversity of jobs.

“The one thing I like about public works is that there’s something new every day,” he said. “You weren’t going to do the same thing all the time.”

Halbrucker said he and his wife had decided on a possible move after their youngest child graduated high school. Last October, Halbrucker attended the Wisconsin Wastewater Operators’ Association convention, which was hosted by West Salem and held in La Crosse, and he liked the area. And when the public works director position opened, he thought it was a good opportunity.

“I had never really been to that part of the state before,” he said. “It was pretty country out there.”

Halbrucker said one challenge in the job change will be the size of the public works system — Palmyra has a population of about 1,800 while West Salem is over 4,700 — but he is eager to learn and move forward.

“It’ll just be some driving around and meeting the employees and just learning the daily routines,” he said.

Halbrucker’s starting annual salary will be $55,000.

At the village board meeting last week, Trustee Terry Hanson cast the lone nay vote in accepting the finance and personnel committee’s meeting minutes that approved offering Halbrucker the position. Engel said the committee offered Halbrucker the position and he accepted, but Hanson felt it should be the board that has final approval on hiring.

“That’s just procedural,” Hanson said. “The board should act on it before we offer the position.”