An assistant administrator of the Ohio Bureau of Workers Compensation has accepted the job of heading North Dakota's Workforce Safety and Insurance agency.

Charles "Sandy" Blunt will start his new job as executive director sometime toward the end of the month, spokesman Mark Armstrong said Saturday. Blunt's salary and benefit package will total about $140,000.

North Dakota's workforce safety agency, formerly the Workers Compensation Bureau, sells insurance for workplace injuries. State law requires businesses to buy coverage from the agency.

Blunt said in a statement Saturday that he is excited about the new job. He said he has a 90-day transition plan and will start by "listening and learning" and meeting with staff members and stakeholders.

The workforce safety agency's directors voted unanimously Friday to offer the administrator's job to Blunt, after Thomas Cleary, a former executive vice president of the Injured Workers' Insurance Fund of Towson, Md., turned it down. Board members said Blunt and Cleary were closely matched in the search for a new director.

Blunt has been in the workers compensation business since the early 1990s, and has worked for the Ohio bureau in various jobs over the last eight years. He also worked in the first Bush administration as an aide to federal Housing Secretary Jack Kemp.

In North Dakota, Blunt will succeed Brent Edison, who was fired last October.