LOS ANGELES : Central American Refugee Center Director Selected

Roberto Lovato, the administrative director of the Central American Refugee Center in Pico-Union, has been named the agency’s executive director after a three-month search.

The $34,000-a-year position opened after the Jan. 29 resignation of Madeline Janis, who headed the agency for three years and was credited with building the advocacy group into a nationally prominent social services organization with a $2-million annual budget.

Janis, who is Anglo, said she resigned to make way for more Central American leadership in the organization. Lovato, who is Salvadoran-American, will be the agency’s second executive director of Central American descent.

A 29-year-old honors graduate of UC Berkeley, Lovato has coordinated CARECEN’s spending since 1989 and has been instrumental in the center’s youth development program, Nueva Generacion. “He is articulate and organized and has a good sense of the community,” said Janis, who was part of the seven-person search committee.