President Linda Lacy’s looming retirement has the board taking action and starting a search team.

The board will interview two firms during the board of trustees meeting Wednesday, Sept. 3. The meeting starts at 5:30 p.m.

“I have not met any of the firms, ” Trustee John Paul Drayer said. “I am open minded to see who does the best job of answering all the questions to conduct the best possible search for our college.”

According to Trustee Shin Liu, five firms applied to help in the search for a new president and superintendent.

Out of the five firms, ELS Group and Community College Search Services will be the firms interviewed at Wednesday’s board meeting.

Liu was one of three subcommittee members who was in charge of determining the top-two firms who would go on and do a second-level interview. The other two were Board President Carmen Avalos and Board Secretary Marisa Perez.

Liu said, “All five firms are very qualified. It was a very hard decision for the subcommittee members to select the top two to do the second-level interview.”

The purpose of the firm interviews is to “provide executive level consulting services to the board for the president and superintendent position … and to finalize a contract with the selected firm,” according to the board of trustees agenda.

The contract would be ratified on the Wednesday, Sept. 17 board meeting, with the services of the selected firm to cost roughly around $22,000 to $32,000; the money coming out of the 2014-2015 Cerritos College general fund budget.

Lacy announced the decision to retire last June, effective for July 2015.