David T. Flanagan, former president of Central Maine Power, has been appointed the interim president of the University of Southern Maine, University of Maine System Chancellor James H. Page and board chairman Samuel Collins announced Wednesday.

According to a press release, the university recruited Flanagan to head “a critical transition of an institution that serves Maine’s two largest urban regions.”

Flanagan spent 15 years with CMP. He also has been an assistant Maine attorney general and served as chief legal counsel to Maine Gov. Joseph Brennan. In 2005 U.S. Sen. Susan Collins appointed Flanagan to lead the Homeland Security Committee’s investigation into the U.S. government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.

Flanagan is a former member and chairman of the University of Maine System Board of Trustees and led the 2009 Task Force on the Structure and Governance of the University of Maine System.

In announcing the appointment of Flanagan, the press release said, university leaders made it clear that the University of Southern Maine faces grave fiscal and enrollment challenges that include a projected $12.5 million budget deficit for the next fiscal year and a 10 percent drop in credit hours over the last six years.

Flanagan will begin his tenure July 28. He will serve as president until a permanent president arrives on campus. UMS trustee James Erwin is leading USM through a search process that will get under way this fall with a goal of having a permanent leader in place in the middle of 2015.

In prepared remarks Flanagan outlined the challenges.

“The USM business model is obsolete,” he said. “Outside forces have rendered it unsustainable. USM must transform itself to ensure its future value to the people of Maine. And this university with all its strengths has the capacity to undergo such a transformation.”