Washington, D.C. ? The new head of the CIA’s clandestine service is a veteran operative who joined other high-ranking officials in quitting the spy agency in 2004 after clashing with aides to then-director Porter Goss.

Michael Sulick, who has 25 years of experience at the CIA, was named Friday to become director of the service that includes most of its foreign posts and covert officers.

He is to take over Sept. 30.

In a note to employees that the agency released, CIA Director Michael Hayden said Sulick was “ideally prepared to guide the National Clandestine Service as it strives to meet the range of security challenges facing our country, starting with the fight against terror. He knows that espionage demands constant change and adaptation.”

Sulick had held the No. 2 job in the clandestine service, as the CIA’s associate deputy director for operations, for only several months before he decided to leave and become a private consultant.

He also had been a CIA division chief and chief of the agency’s counterintelligence.