Saying the "stars aligned," Barak Hermann, in his fourth year as assistant executive director of JCC MetroWest, is leaving to become executive director of the Jewish Community Center of Central New Jersey in Scotch Plains.

He succeeds longtime director Richard Corman, who left in June to take up a position in Manhattan. Hermann begins his new job in October.

At JCC MetroWest, Hermann, 36, supervises staff at its West Orange and Whippany facilities and manages an operating budget of $16 million.

He was recently promoted to chief operating officer of the Lautenberg Family JCC, the facility on the Aidekman Family Campus in Whippany, and has also been active with the New York-based Jewish Outreach Institute in efforts to involve unaffiliated Jews from Morris County in community activities.

Hermann said his decision to leave JCC MetroWest is unrelated to the announcement last month that because of budget shortfalls, the organization is considering vacating the athletic facility in Whippany as a JCC operation and allowing it to be run by an outside fitness provider. The agency has already announced plans to seek an alternative venue for a day-care facility currently based on the Aidekman campus.

Defending the agency at a recent public forum, Hermann said the Whippany JCC, which opened in 1992, had been able to attract only 2,000 people out of a potential area Jewish population of 40,000. He suggested that efforts on behalf of the Morris County community might better be centered in Randolph, nine miles west of the current building.

In an interview last week, Hermann said he would have been happy to stay at JCC MetroWest and that he expects recently completed renovations will bring new successes for the West Orange facility — the Leon & Toby Cooperman JCC, Ross Family Campus — and that programs being developed in Morris County will be successful as well. He said he was attracted by the opportunity to become the chief professional officer at the Central JCC.

"The stars were aligned," he said. "I was excited about the staff there, and it was just an incredible opportunity to become part of the leadership there, to have overall accountability, and to help create Jewish community — which is what I love to do."

Central JCC president Mindy Goldberger, who served on the selection committee, said both the committee and the board were unanimous in their selection of Hermann.

In a July 25 letter to JCC members announcing his appointment, she said that he not only met the criteria established at the outset of the search process but "also has the capacity to lead our center with passion, enthusiasm, and excellence."

Hermann and his wife, Cory, and their three sons, ages seven, five, and one, live in Randolph, a relatively easy 35-minute commute to the campus in Scotch Plains and only about six miles longer than his current drive to West Orange.

The operating budget of the Central JCC is $5.3 million, up from $450,000 when Corman was hired as executive director in 1987.

Before coming to MetroWest, Hermann worked at the Suffolk Y Jewish Community Center in New York, where he was involved in programming, overseeing the youth and teen departments, and directing a day camp of 600 children.

Like Corman, Hermann has a master's degree from Yeshiva University's Wurzweiler School of Social Work in New York City. He is also a graduate of the 18-month JCCs of North America Association's Executive Development Program.

Hermann said he expects JCC MetroWest to continue to be one of the leading JCCs in North America.

"With the renovations and expansion of the West Orange facility, you'll see more successes every day; it will continue to be a central gathering place for Jews," he said. "And I'm more than confident that the changes will bear wonderful fruit for the Morris County community at a more central location."