RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Looking for a new pursuit after taking the state lottery from zero to $1.4 billion, the first and only executive director of the North Carolina Education Lottery said Monday he's leaving to take a job in the gaming industry's private sector.

Tom Shaheen, who arrived in November 2005, will become a vice president for Linq3, a New York-based startup company that's creating ways to expand automated lottery sales machines, such as through ATMs.

"It's a new challenge and I'm a challenge-type of person," Shaheen, 57, said in an interview.

Shaheen was hired from the New Mexico lottery and helped organize the North Carolina lottery from scratch before the first tickets were sold in March 2006. Today, a matured North Carolina lottery has more than 6,200 retailers that generated $1.4 billion in ticket sales last year from numbers games and scratch-offs and almost $420 million for education initiatives.

Shaheen, who has worked in state lotteries for more than 22 years, called the North Carolina job "one of the greatest experiences of my life."

"I'm proud of everything about this organization," he said. "We've seen that the money is being used to help enhance education in the state."

Alice Garland, the lottery's deputy executive director for legislative and corporate communications, began her role Monday as acting executive director. Shaheen said he'll remain an adviser until his last day Sept. 17. The commission will choose his permanent successor.

Shaheen came to North Carolina three months after the Legislature narrowly approved the lottery's creation, which was secured by then-Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue casting the deciding vote in a tie in the Senate. He also arrived a few weeks after lottery commissioner Kevin Geddings resigned after it was revealed he had been paid for services by a company that wanted to operate the new games.

"It was a difficult issue because it was very controversial but he stepped in here with his knowledge and experience," said Rep. Bill Owens, D-Pasquotank, one of the lottery's top boosters in the Legislature before its passage. "I don't know how he could have done a better job."

North Carolina was the last state on the East Coast to start a lottery. Lottery sales have grown markedly in the last two to three years as new games have come online and Shaheen pushed a change to state law so a greater percentage of revenues could go to prize winnings.

Shaheen also was president of a multistate lottery group that helped expand the Powerball and Mega Millions games to other states.

"On behalf of the school children and the taxpayers of this State, I thank Tom and wish him well in his new endeavor," commission chairman Bob Farris said in a news release. "The team he built and the integrity he instilled will live on in the organization."

Shaheen said the lottery faces challenges because its advertising budget is limited to 1 percent of annual gross revenues and its 225 employees have been limited in pay raises by what other rank-and-file state employees receive. The flat salaries have led some workers to leave, he said. But Shaheen, who will continue to live in North Carolina with his new job, said these and other challenges didn't cause his departure.

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Online:

N.C. Education Lottery: http://www.nc-educationlottery.org/