Helping chart the future of downtown Lawrence is becoming a full-time job, and Rick Marquez says he is more than ready to get started.

Marquez, 39, starts May 1 as administrator of Downtown Lawrence Inc., a group that organizes events, promotes commerce and lobbies on behalf of its more than 350 member residents, businesses and others interested in the future of the central business district.

“It’s vibrant, and it’s viable,” Marquez said, covering both the organization and the business district. “That’s what I’ll be working on – to keep it that way, and to make it more so.”

For years the administrator post has been occupied by a series of part-time employees, many of them downtown shopkeepers who split their time between minding their own stores and working on behalf of as many as 700 different constituents. The latest was Maria Martin, who resigned in December to spend more time at her shop, Southwest and More.

The organization’s seven-member board opted to elevate the job’s status. Bob Oderkirk declined to disclose the administrator’s salary – previous administrators have earned between $12,000 and $42,000 – but said Marquez certainly would have plenty to do.

Whether it’s boosting membership or implementing direct-mail campaigns or organizing the annual Sidewalk Sale in the face of ongoing construction to upgrade sewer lines, Marquez will be busy.

Rick Marquez is the new administrator of Downtown Lawrence Inc. He is pictured on Monday along Massachussetts Street.

“It’s too important of a position to do part time,” said Oderkirk, who recently moved his own business, Free State Business & Financial Services, to 1031 Vt. “It sounds like a very overwhelming list of things to do, but Richard has the capacity to do these things.”

Marquez and his family chose to settle in Lawrence over Burlington, Vt., another community with a strong university, a vibrant downtown and within an hour’s drive of a major city and airport.

After spending six years in Europe – three in England, three in Germany – Marquez and his family actually were in Burlington when they read about Lawrence in the New York Times. They ended up moving to town in October, renting an apartment in northwest Lawrence.

Gina Marquez went to work for Lawrence public schools, and Rick Marquez took a job at Pizza Hut in the Kansas Union, waiting for the right opportunity to come along. It did, and he’ll soon be able to walk to work.

Downtown Lawrence Inc.’s office is in the US Bank tower, and on Aug. 1 the Marquez family will be moving to an apartment upstairs from Goldmakers, 723 Mass.

Rick Marquez

Position: Starts May 1 as administrator of Downtown Lawrence Inc.

Work experience: Project manager for subcontractor installing access-control systems at 18 U.S. Army bases in Belgium, Germany and Italy; chef for officers club at RAF Lakenheath, north of London; bookkeeper for June Anne Managements in Newmarket, England, handling personal accounts for members of The Moody Blues; founding president of Santa Rosa Economic Development in Santa Rosa, N.M., his hometown; business banker for First National Bank of Tucumcari, outside of Santa Rosa.

Age: 39

Family: Married. His wife, Gina Marquez, is a speech pathologist for Lawrence public schools. They have a 2-year-old daughter, Lily.