PROVIDENCE – Saul Kaplan, executive director of the R.I. Economic Development Corporation, chairman of the Quonset Development Corporation and Slater Technology Fund and the governor’s Executive Counselor on Economic Growth and Community Development, “has decided to return to the private sector,” Gov. Donald L. Carcieiri said.

Today will be Kaplan’s last day on the job, state officials said. The governor accepted his resignation this morning and named EDC Deputy Director J. Michael Saul to serve as the agency’s interim executive director.

Saul, a resident of Barrington, is a past business and banking executive “with extensive experience in building organizations, particularly in their critical initial startup phase or in reorganization,” the governor’s office noted. His career has included leadership of successful turnaround and startup efforts for privately held companies across Rhode Island, as well as service as a senior lending and credit executive with Bank of Boston.

Active in the community, He is executive director of The Urban Revitalization Fund of Rhode Island. Saul also has served as chairman and director of the Rhode Island Urban Project; trustee and chairman of the development committee at Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC); and a director of the Minority Investment Development Corporation (MIDC) and Junior Achievement of Rhode Island.

A graduate of Providence College, he has taken part in executive management programs at the University of Virginia’s Darden Business School.

At the EDC, Saul has overseen the agency’s Small Business Loan Fund Corporation (SBLFC), an $11 million revolving fund that lends to small companies in the hopes that it will spur more public- and private-sector financing. (READ MORE)

Saul will take over the leadership of the EDC tomorrow. Meanwhile, Kaplan “will continue to focus on his passion for business-model innovation,” the governor’s office said.

Kaplan is a founder of the Business Innovation Factory, a collaborative community of innovators seeking to expedite the shift of ideas from concept to reality. (READ MORE) Besides his role with the EDC and BIF, he also has been active as a member of the board of directors of The Big Picture Company, the innovative education nonprofit behind the Met Schools in Providence and Newport, and Family Service of Rhode Island.

“I love Rhode Island,” Kaplan told Providence Business News in an e-mail today. “It has been a great privilege to serve the state for the past five and a half years, and I am very proud of what the RIEDC team has accomplished in this time.”

But, he added, “I have decided to return to the private sector, where I can more effectively advance the innovation agenda I believe is so central to the long-term repositioning of our state and national economy.”

Under his leadership, the EDC has won honors including three regional marketing awards presented this fall by the Northeastern Economic Developers Association. (READ MORE)

“I would like to thank Saul [Kaplan] for his leadership and commitment to Rhode Island’s economic development,” Carcieiri said in a statement this morning.

“His vision to make Rhode Island a leader in the innovation economy has resulted in the state moving up in every national report ranking progress toward creating a new knowledge-based economy. (READ MORE) I wish him well in his future endeavors and am confident his mark on the state’s economy will be long-lasting.”

The R.I. Economic Development Corporation is a quasi-public agency established to promote business development, preservation and expansion in the state and undertake port projects in Rhode Island. Additional information, including the EDC’s 2008 Growth Plan, is available at www.riedc.com.

The Business Innovation Factory (BIF) is a community of innovators exploring business-model innovation, seeking to move ideas off the white board and onto the ground as quickly and cost-effectively as possible. Additional information about BIF and its annual Collaborative Innovation Summit is available at www.BusinessInnovationFactory.com.