PORTLAND – Former state lawmaker Jeffrey Butland was appointed Friday as the regional administrator for the Small Business Administration in New England.

Butland of Cumberland will oversee the agency’s programs and services in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The former Marine is a Republican who served as state Senate president from 1994 to 1996. He has worked as an operational planner for L.L. Bean since 1984. Before that he was self-employed in the construction industry.

Butland was chairman of the Maine Bush-Cheney Steering Committee and was a member of the campaign’s state executive committee.

More than 5,300 small businesses in New England received SBA loans worth more than $708 million in the last fiscal year.

In another Bush administration appointment, Kevin Keogh of Falmouth was named to serve as the secretary’s representative for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in the New England region.