The Arkansas Scholarship Lottery has promoted its deputy director of security and compliance, Angela Springer, to security director, effective next Monday, lottery Director Bishop Woosley said Wednesday.
With the promotion, Springer's annual salary will increase from $74,585 to $92,515, Woosley said.
The lottery promoted Springer after 56 people applied for the job and seven people were interviewed, Woosley said.
Springer has been the lottery's deputy director of security and compliance since September 2013, and served as lottery security specialist from June 2011-September 2013 and as lottery security analyst from August 2009-June 2011.
"Angela has been in the lottery security department since the launch of the lottery [and] she has been instrumental in the training of our security staff, including the two previous lottery security directors," said Woosley, who has worked at the lottery since July 2009 and served as its director since February 2012.
"She has experience in all facets of our security division, and her institutional knowledge of this agency and this industry are a perfect fit for the position," Woosley said in a written statement.
Springer will fill the vacancy created after Gov. Asa Hutchinson appointed the lottery's previous security director, A.J. Gary, as director of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management, effective July 1. Gary, a former Conway police chief, served as the lottery's security director for several months after he was hired at a starting salary of $100,479 a year at the lottery.
Last November, Gary assumed the security director job held by former Missouri lottery security manager Daryl Backes, who resigned last September about 14 months after the now-defunct Arkansas Lottery Commission approved hiring him at a starting salary of $98,500 a year.
The commission hired Backes to replace former Grant County Sheriff Lance Huey, who retired as the lottery's security director on June 30, 2014, after serving in the job for five years. Huey was paid $115,644 a year as the lottery's security director.
In another lottery promotion, Woosley said Wednesday that marketing sales representative Molly Harris has been promoted to regional sales manager for key chain accounts -- a position that lottery consultant Camelot Global Services recommended the lottery consider creating. Harris' salary is increasing from $42,376 to $65,000 a year.
Harris was promoted after 42 people applied and four people were interviewed for the job, Woosley said.
"Molly has excelled at customer service in her region for seven years [and] she is passionate about gaming and lottery specifically. She is a team player and is respected by her peers,"' Woosley said in a written statement. Harris' region includes Boone, Marion, Madison, Newton, and Carroll counties.
The lottery started selling tickets on Sept. 28, 2009. It has helped finance more than 30,000 Arkansas Academic Challenge Scholarships during each of the past six fiscal years.
Metro on 09/08/2016