AUGUSTA — The chief lobbyist for the Maine State Employees Association will take over May 1 as MSEA’s executive director, Maine’s largest state workers’ union announced Thursday.

Carl Leinonen, 34, of Augusta will succeed Philip Merrill as the MSEA’s executive director. Leinonen was executive director of the Maine American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO, from 1982 until he joined the MSEA last year. He also worked as a field organizer for AFT in Connecticut.

Leinonen currently is associate executive director of the MSEA.

The MSEA represents more than 10,000 state workers.