Ending a year-long search, the University on Monday named Ted A. Mayer, director of dining services at Middlebury College, to head Harvard Dining Services (HDS) and the nearly four million meals it serves each year.

In a phone interview with The Crimson last night from his Middlebury, Vt., home, Mayer said he is "very excited about the challenge." He will begin his new post June 1.

Two members of the search committee created to replace Michael P. Berry--the popular food guru who left the University last March for a position at Walt Disney Co.--later praised Mayer as an accomplished and responsive administrator.

University spokesperson Alex Huppe refused to confirm Mayer's appointment last night. The announcement is expected to be made today.

At Middlebury, where he has worked since 1988, Mayer managed a $10 million annual budget, oversaw the renovation of the college's five dining halls--which serve a million meals a year to its 2,100 undergraduates--and introduced Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

At Harvard, Mayer will control a $34 million yearly budget and a dining system that serves nearly four times as many meals.

Sources said his annual salary will rise from $60,000 to $122,000. Mayer would not confirm that figure.

Mayer identified three areas on which he will focus at Harvard: maintaining the relationship between HDS and students, keeping abreast of culinary changes and shifts in students' tastes and making Loker Commons financially viable and responsive to student preferences.

Two members of the search committee praised Mayer's appointment.

"He's a great director of dining services and has a lot of experience with the issues he'll be dealing with at Harvard," said search committee student member Rudd W. Coffey '97, who described Mayer as down-to-earth and friendly. "He's definitely of the mind-set that the undergraduates are his main clients."

Coffey said that HDS grew rapidly under Berry's tenure, adding that Mayer said "he wants to go back through and dot all the 'I's and cross all the 'T's and make everything run efficiently."

Bradford E. Miller '97, a student member on the search committee, said he is "extremely pleased with the choice."

After researching Mayer's past experience and interviewing him, Miller said he was most impressed by his record of "receptiveness to student opinion."

"He is honest and straightforward," Miller added. "He is also opinionated, which is refreshing to say."

According to Miller, Mayer, who is 46, has been a leading candidate for the post since the beginning of the search. Mayer was the top choice of five candidates to succeed Berry.

The other candidates were dining-services officials from Stanford University, Vanderbilt University, the University of Maine and HDS Acting Director Leonard D. Condenzio.