An Indiana man who spent several years as a planner for Kootenai County, Idaho, has been hired as the Flathead County planning director.  

Mark Mussman, 57, begins his job here on June 22. He will replace Planning Director BJ Grieve, who stepped down to take the senior planner position for Flathead County.

Mussman has been the executive director of the Huntington, Indiana, Countywide Department of Community Development for the past three years. Prior to that he spent a couple of years as a lead planner in Alaska for the Fairbanks North Star Borough Department of Community Planning.

He spent more than 20 years in Idaho, where he earned a Master of Public Administration Degree from Idaho State University in Pocatello, and then completed course work for a Doctor of Arts degree in political science.

His dissertation research focused on the planning of land and space as they relate to community satisfaction, image and quality of life.

Mussman worked for the Kootenai County Building and Planning Department in Coeur d’Alene from 2001 through 2008, after which he spent a year as a private planning consultant in Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington before moving to Alaska in early 2010.

“The last three years in Indiana I’ve realized I’m not a Midwesterner anymore,” the Indiana native said. “I’m an Idaho/Montana kind of guy.”

Mussman said he’s familiar with Flathead County because he and his family traveled to the Flathead for soccer tournaments during his children’s younger years. Now two of his four grown children live in Montana — one in Billings and one in Hamilton — and he has grandchildren in Hamilton, which influenced his decision to relocate to the Flathead Valley.

Flathead County will pay Mussman a starting salary of $67,103 annually, with steps up to $74,770 by the fourth year of his employment. He will be paid $7,000 for moving expenses to relocate to the Flathead.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.