For Old Saybrook Finance Director Lisa Carver, problems are like puzzles-and boy does she love puzzles.

"I'm a puzzle person. The first thing I do in the morning is complete both the Hartford Courant and New Britain Herald crossword puzzles. It gets me focused for the day," says Lisa.

When the puzzles are done, Lisa gets in her car and drives from her New Britain home of 29 years to Old Saybrook, a town she's come to love.

"Both my husband, Paul, and I really fell in love with Old Saybrook once we started coming down here. Its friendly, welcoming atmosphere is what we are looking for at this time in our lives," says Lisa, who's already bought a home and will relocate to town in September.

A certified CPA and chartered financial analyst with a master's degree in public administration, Lisa loves her job as town finance director, which lets her tackle new, varied, and interesting tasks each and every day.

"Meeting a challenge, fixing a problem-it's all about making things better for the people you serve," says Lisa. "I like to put the pieces together to solve a problem. You have to unravel an issue to identify how the pieces fit together. It's not about blame. It's about how do you move forward to fix it? Where do you want to go?"

Named as the town's first finance director nine months ago, Lisa's first year on the job has included many "first" tasks.

Working in a team, she developed a more detailed budget document with historical information about actual expenditures versus budgeted ones. She also aggregated budget numbers for employee benefit information in one detailed spreadsheet to provide town leaders with better management information with which to make decisions.

"We now have a much better handle on exactly what health insurance is costing the town," says Lisa.

With Lisa working on the expenditure side and Town Treasurer Bob Fish on the revenues side, they've developed new written policies to standardize town fiscal management. They've also worked to segregate duties for town financial management, a best practice recommended by town auditors.

"We're beefing up our policies with an asset policy and a new fund balance policy. Having an undesignated fund balance at eight percent of the budget is not everything, but it's really important for the town's fiscal health," says Lisa.

First Selectman Carl Fortuna says of hiring Lisa as financial director, "I have had several people tell me that they have no doubt that this is the best move that I've made in the first 1½ years of my administration, and I agree. Not only does she possess extraordinary financial acumen; she also brings with her vast public policy experience and has a great work ethic."

How did Lisa arrive at this career choice? It began when she was working full-time and putting herself part-time through Post College for an accounting degree. Deciding to switch and go to college full-time, she needed a part-time job to pay the bills.

The part-time job she found was working on the Congressional campaign of a man named John Rowland.

"When he won, he offered me the job of office manager of his local Waterbury office," says Lisa. "I fell in love with work in government. It's a job where you're helping people and making a difference in people's lives."

That led to other government jobs, including work for the state treasurer's office preparing annual reports and with state pension funds while Chris Burnham was treasurer.

Then she decided to try the private sector and took a job for five years with The Hartford, at which she was responsible for overseeing 30 accountants, but she found she missed feeling the close connection between her work and helping people. So she took a cut in pay working in the New Britain mayor's office as chief of staff for Tim Stewart.

"Life is too short to toil in a job where you're not getting satisfaction," says Lisa. "Money isn't everything."

While in that post for eight years, she worked on many projects, including participating in the building and planning of a new $36 million police station. Downes Construction, the firm chosen as the design-build firm for Old Saybrook's police station, was the design-build firm for the New Britain project.

"They were great to work with and very responsive to public sector concerns," says Lisa.

As a volunteer in her hometown of New Britain, Lisa has often been tapped for her financial skills. Currently, she is on the Board of the Neighborhoods Housing Services, a non-profit that promotes home rehabilitation and affordable housing; is treasurer and finance board chairman for St. Matthews Lutheran Church; and serves on the Board of Education for the church's Lutheran parochial school. Previously, she also has served on several New Britain school building committees and on the board for the local EMS.

She and her husband look forward to starting a new life chapter in Old Saybrook in the fall.

"We're both history buffs and antique hunters, so this is a great corridor to explore our interests," says Lisa.