Ralph Sandler looks very comfortable in the executive office of the Maine Center for the Arts. On a rainy Saturday afternoon, he is dressed casually for a day of meetings with administrators, reporters and staff members.

Sandler can afford to relax, walk with his hands in his pockets or sit with one leg resting across the arm of a chair. Pending approval by the University of Maine System board of trustees at the end of this month, Ralph Sandler will become the new executive director at the Maine Center for the Arts.

“I’ve been hired in the penultimate stage,” says Sandler with the broad smile of a man who feels certain he has made the team.

Sandler was not among the original finalists for the job, but was added later after one of the other candidates withdrew his application. If hired, Sandler will assume a position that has been unfilled since former director Joel Katz was controversially fired last fall. Katz is currently executive director at City Centre at Coral Springs, in Coral Springs, Fla. The search for his replacement has been wearisomely long, and Sandler’s plucky presence is a timely boon for Maine Center staff.

As a child, Sandler spent summers at Androscoggin Lake in Kennebec County, but he will be the first to admit he doesn’t know much about Maine, or about the history and constituents of the Maine Center.

But Sandler knows about the arts.

And he knows that the Maine Center is an arts administrator’s dream.

“Physically, it’s gorgeous,” he says of the 1,629-seat facility. “It is a place that, in a relatively short period of time, has developed a national reputation, but is also a place that is poised to do more.”

In Madison, Wis., where Sandler was managing director for the Madison Civic Center for eight years, he earned a reputation as an innovative and creative arts programmer who offered a variety of cultural events while maintaining strong ties with local groups.

He vows that his first order of duty at the Maine Center will be to forge links with the community.

“I firmly believe the arts are central to living a productive life,” explains Sandler, 53, who was born in Stockholm, Sweden, but grew up in Manhattan. “It seems to me that people are genuinely interested in the concept of how a center such as this relates to its community. I think this place was called the Maine Center for the Arts for a reason. They (the founders) see it as a statewide resource. That’s one of the things that attracted me to this place.”

Selling tickets is one way to put the community in contact with the arts. But Sandler believes in putting the arts in contact with the community, and his mind whirls with ideas about outreach programs.

Of particular interest to Sandler are artist residencies, in which artists remain in town for more than a two-hour performance and offer classes, lectures, or demonstrations to members of the community such as school children, senior-citizens groups, rotary clubs, business communities, or hospital patients.

Although he sees balance and variety as the marks of good programming, Sandler admits he is a daring programmer, and sees that as an important quality for the job: “I’m certainly not averse to taking risks. I’ve taken them all my life, but I’m certainly not averse to crowd pleasing, or programming more popular events.”

In 1990, Sandler’s long-term service and accomplishments in arts presenting were recognized with the Fannie Taylor Award from the Association of Performing Arts Presenters in Washington, D.C. At that time, the mayor of Madison accredited Sandler with taking a fledgling arts organization and transforming it into a place where artists wanted to perform. Sandler has the same aspirations for the Maine Center, where he plans to book popular, experimental, and ethnic shows in the areas of theater, dance, and music.

As a proponent of new works, especially by American artists, Sandler would also like to commission pieces to be premiered at the Maine Center. One of his last major projects at the Madison Civic Center was a commission with the Juilliard String Quartet and jazz giant Billy Taylor.

But Sandler has a keen eye turned toward the international art scene, too.

“I think that the music of Beethoven and Mozart — as wonderful as it is — has to be balanced with the music of other countries,” explains Sandler.

With the political new world order, he says, Americans need to develop their tastes for a broad fare of artistic delights. Concert halls across the country are becoming increasingly interested in presenting ethnic shows, and Sandler expects to keep the Maine Center on the cutting edge.

“If we’re going to be an international family, then we have to know who our family members are, and I firmly believe that the two best and easiest and most productive entrees to understanding that family are through the arts and through food,” says Sandler.

Because of his interest in cultural diversity, Sandler is particularly pleased that Maine Center houses the Hudson Museum.

“I don’t know who decided to do that,” says Sandler excitedly, “but whoever did is brilliant because it allows audiences that are coming here for performances to have another level of expression.”

During his weeklong visit, Sandlers plans to meet with museum staff to discuss the possibilities of coordinating events between the two factions of the building.

If all goes well, Sandler will take his seat at the executive director’s desk by July. In the meantime, he’ll be making visits to Orono, learning about the Maine Center and its constituents. No doubt, he will be finding more possibilities for bringing arts to Maine, and Maine to the arts.

“My goal in life as an arts administrator, an arts advocate, is to try to make the arts more central to the living of one’s life,” says Sandler.