Mass. gambling commission poised to pick a veteran regulator from Washington state as executive director

By Mark Arsenault, Globe Staff

The state gambling commission may have finally found its first executive director, after a long hunt to fill the commission’s most crucial vacancy.

Commissioner Bruce Stebbins, who has headed up the search for an executive director, on Thursday will present Rick Day, a Washington state gambling regulator, to the rest of the commission, and recommend that Day be hired for the local job.

Day, currently the executive director of the Washington State Gambling Commission, will be interviewed in a public session of the commission.

Day has held the Washington state job since 2001. He has held a variety of other posts over a career stretching for more than 30 years, including director of the Montana corrections department, director of the Montana corrections and human services department, and chief of the gambling investigation bureau of the gambling control division of the Montana Department of Justice.

He began his career as a police officer in Montana and holds a bachelor’s in sociology/criminal justice and a master’s in public administration, the gambling commission said in a statement.