ORONO – Hurricane Katrina was the last straw. After spending eight years in the South, Frank Pergolizzi is eager to return to the Northeast.

Pergolizzi, who boasts 17 years’ experience as a college athletic director, is hoping the University of Maine will give him the opportunity to share that experience while living closer to his native New York.

The 49-year-old Pergolizzi, one of three finalists for the position, was on campus Friday to meet with members of the UMaine athletic department, faculty and staff to discuss his candidacy for the position.

“We’re looking for a home and a place to call home and if I come here, it’s going to be with the intention of staying for a long time,” said Pergolizzi, who spent the last six years as the athletic director at Southeastern Louisiana University.

He resigned that job last month and serves as an advisor to the university. Pergolizzi and his wife Mary, who hails from Michigan, are planning to make a move northward.

“Both of our parents are getting older with some health issues and it’s really become more and more problematic for us, as time’s gone by, to be as far as we are from both of them,” Pergolizzi said.

Now that the interview process is complete, the UMaine search committee chaired by professor David Townsend, will meet and make a recommendation to UMaine President Robert Kennedy. He will then choose the successor to Patrick Nero, who left last summer to become the commissioner of the America East Conference.

UMaine interim AD Blake James and Wayne State AD Robert Fournier are the other finalists for the job.

Prior to SLU, Pergolizzi spent two years as the AD at East Tennessee State after an eight-year stint in the same position at St. Francis College (N.Y.), where he also coached football from 1989-95.

Finances were among the key topics Pergolizzi addressed during a visit with local media at Dexter Lounge.

“There’s a need to increase and improve fundraising for athletics, so that would clearly be a priority,” Pergolizzi said.

At SLU, Pergolizzi played a key role in a $5 million fundraising campaign. Donations to the athletic program increased from $208,000 in 1998-99, the year prior to his arrival, to $1.2 million during 2004-05.

“It’s always a priority to build relationships any time you take a new position,” he said. “The first day on the job I would want to make sure that I personally visited our top five donors, just introduce myself and say hello, begin to build those relationships.”

While UMaine is long-established as a competitive Division I athletic program, Pergolizzi would hope to generate even more support among Black Bear supporters throughout the state.

“You’re at a state university so we’ve got to really integrate ourselves into the fiber of this state in any way that we possibly can,” he said, explaining SLU took more of a regional approach.

UMaine is among a handful of northern schools at which Pergolizzi has interviewed for AD vacancies in the last year.

Last summer, he was a finalist at the University at Buffalo. In December, he was a finalist at both Eastern Michigan and Central Michigan universities. Last month, he was on the short list at Oberlin College (Ohio).

Pergolizzi and his wife agreed, especially after Hurricane Katrina, they were ready for a change of scenery.

“We’ll take a good, old-fashioned blizzard over a hurricane any day,” added Pergolizzi, who earned a master’s in sports administration from Western Michigan in 1987.

Pergolizzi began his coaching career in Maine. After graduating from Williams College (Mass.) in 1978, his first job was as a teacher and coach at Hebron Academy.

“I was the head football coach and the head basketball coach and I coached girls lacrosse,” said Pergolizzi, who also has vacationed in Bar Harbor with his wife several times.