PROVIDENCE — A search committee has recommended planning veteran Ioanna T. Morfessis to lead the state’s ailing Economic Development Corporation, an agency that could play a key role in getting Rhode Islanders back to work.

Morfessis has not yet officially been offered the director’s job. The Carcieri administration will say only that it is negotiating with a candidate over the specifics of the contract.

“I think she’s got the energy and the drive and the experience” to deal with the economic development challenges she could face in Rhode Island, House Majority Leader Gordon D. Fox said Thursday.

Rep. Donna Walsh, D-Charlestown, a member of the search committee said Morfessis was the committee’s unanimous choice for the job.

Morfessis made a name for herself, first in Arizona where she was founding president and chief executive officer of the Greater Phoenix Economic Council for eight years, before moving to Baltimore, Md., to work as president and chief executive officer of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, that region’s private-public economic development partnership.

When she left that position in 2003 to return to Arizona to launch a consultancy, The Baltimore Sun newspaper quoted one official as saying Maryland was “losing one of the top economic development people in the country.”

During her tenure, an estimated 34 companies reportedly located, expanded or chose to stay in the region. Morfessis also had a hand in organizing what were known as “sales missions” –– recruiting trips throughout the country to meet and court hundreds of company executives.

“She’s one of a handful of people who have a track record of pulling together the interests of a variety of political leaders and business leaders around a common cause and helping them see the commonality of their interests,” a senior official at real-estate giant CB Richard Ellis, told the paper.

Morfessis could not be reached Thursday. She has previously referred comments to search committee chairman Alfred J. Verrecchia, chairman of Pawtucket-based toy maker Hasbro Inc.

“She is a dynamic person, and she’s got energy and creativity and she’s worked with legislatures before,” Walsh, the search committee member said.

Translating that creativity to help cure Rhode Island’s economic ills would be an intricate task. The state is suffering from the third-highest unemployment rate in the country at 13 percent and, this week, was singled out in a national report by the Pew Center on the States as one of 10 states headed towards financial disaster. (Another state on that list is Arizona, where Morfessis now works).

Governor Carcieri declined to confirm Morfessis as his final pick, although he says his administration is currently discussing salary and contract issues with its selected candidate and expects to have an announcement “within days.” Verrecchia also declined to discuss Morfessis’ status.

In a move that could propel negotiations forward, Carcieri Thursday signed into law legislation that would, in part, allow him to offer the new director a three-year contract, lending a sense of continuity to the position and guaranteeing the new head that she or he would not be replaced 14 months from now when Rhode Island’s next governor takes the reins.

For the average Rhode Islander, the selection of a state-level director can seem a bit removed from the daily struggles of trying to find a job or keeping a business afloat, but the responsibility of the EDC, if handled correctly, is to ease those challenges and make the state a more attractive place to work.

“This legislation serves as the foundation that will provide what we need as a tool going forward in terms of economic development,” Carcieri said at a signing ceremony packed with state leaders. “It is going to help us hopefully chart a stable course to make economic development competitive, create jobs and spur the growth of the knowledge economy.”

The law, approved during the General Assembly’s two-day session last month, also allows the governor to reconstitute the EDC’s board — subject to advice and consent of the Senate — expanding it from 9 to 13 members, giving it more geographic diversity and adding a member of the higher-education community.

“Signing the legislation today was a first step,” Carcieri spokeswoman Amy Kempe said. “Now, the next step is to reconstitute the board.”

cneedham@projo.com