Mark Sakai has left his position as executive director of the Delta Museum and Archives to take a job with the Greater Vancouver Homebuilders' Association.
He spent four years with the museum, finishing at the end of November.
Sakai, who was previously employed at the Gulf of Georgia Cannery in Richmond, said he enjoyed his four years in Delta.
"It was a great experience coming from the cannery where we had a very narrow mandate in terms of our subject area. We were basically to commemorate the fishing industry but with a reasonably wide geographic scope of the entire West Coast of Canada," he said.
"So you go from there to the Delta Museum and Archives Society, where the geographic scope may be narrow but the subject scope is quite wide. We're talking about fishing and farming, to transportation to the development of neighbourhoods, and different cultural aspects, to land use controversies and all these other different topics."
Sakai, a Richmond
resident, said when he started here he could quickly see there are many committed and involved people in the community. He said Delta is certainly a unique municipality with three distinct communities separated by expanses of farmland.
"It brings a unique set of challenges. I think the benefit of that is you really do have to go out and meet people and make contacts and engage," he said.
Sakai will serve as director of government relations with the homebuilders' association.
Speaking from a homebuilder's perspective, he said a continued challenge for Delta is to find ways to encourage a mix of housing types that allow people to retire in place.
Gabrielle Martin has assumed the role as acting executive director of the museum and archives.
