Oct. 23—VALDOSTA — Effective Oct. 12, Michael Bourgoin became the new executive director of Valdosta-Lowndes County Habitat for Humanity.

He came to Valdosta from Connecticut in December 2020. After spending some time in the town, he decided Valdosta was where he wanted to stay.

Originally coming to Valdosta for his brother, and after house shopping, Bourgoin said he realized he should have relocated to the Azalea City years ago.

"I just absolutely love the area," he said. "I love the people and couldn't be happier with being here."

Bourgoin first worked at Habitat for about one month before being asked to fill the vacant executive director role. He had been employed with the organization as a construction manager.

"It feels great," he said. "I'm honored that they looked at my resume, which wasn't even targeted for that, and felt that I would be a good fit."

His past experience includes 40 years in broadcasting; he was a pilot traffic reporter in talk radio.

Through radio, Bourgoin said he has indirectly worked with nonprofits through fundraisers and volunteer events, including a Habitat chapter in Connecticut.

Now, as the director of the Valdosta Habitat, he has plans for the organization.

He said he'd like to get the nonprofit back into the swing of homebuilding.

"COVID pretty much shut things down with all the restrictions for not allowing many volunteers on a site at a time and so on," Bourgoin said. "Housebuilding pretty much ground to a halt."

Habitat recently broke ground on one house, has one that is near completion and is scheduled to start progress on two houses at the beginning of 2022.

Bourgoin said the agency is on track to complete four homes next year.

"I'd like to see it be six or eight," he said. "I don't see a problem with that with the way we're sized now, so my goal is to eventually get us up to eight in a year or two and continue to grow."

Bourgoin wants to lead Habitat into home renovations, as well, specifically for veterans and people "aging in place," he said.

He's aiming to incorporate tasks such as building wheelchair ramps and fixing leaky roofs.

"We're branching out into doing those sorts of things, giving back to seniors who deserve it and veterans who've given so much," Bourgoin said. "It's all part of an expanding program."

At Habitat, he now oversees 10 staff members.

He commended the employees, saying the office has been "running like clock work."

"I have full faith in our staff here to be able to do just about anything we want to," Bourgoin said.

Lyle McGhin, volunteer coordinator, spoke highly of the new director.

"I believe that Michael is a great asset to Habitat in that he has experience in actually building a home himself and has previous experience in building relationships with people from other organizations," he said.

Volunteers are being accepted for homebuilding. Opportunities range from doing office duties to being on the job site helping to construct a home.

"When you go out and help, you feel good," he said. "You really do."

Bourgoin said he gets a nice feeling each day he goes home from work knowing he's helped someone.

"To me, being able to make a house available to someone that could not afford it otherwise but pays for it, keeps it up and really gets a hand up in the community is just a win-win," he said.

Visit valdostahabitat.org for information about Habitat.