The trustees of Renton Technical College Friday picked five candidates to interview to replace the college’s fired president on an interim basis.

The process of hiring a new president, which will involve a nationwide search, could take up to a year.

The five candidates were selected during an executive session. The board on Tuesday fired President Don Bressler on a 3-1 vote.

Board trustee Rich Zwicker resigned after Tuesday’s vote; he sat in the audience during the open portions of Friday’s meeting. The other board members attended the meeting, including Tyler Page, who participated by phone. He is recovering from injuries suffered in an accident.

After the meeting, Ronnie Behnke, the chair of the Board of Trustees, said the names of five candidates will be released, once they and the others who applied have been notified of the meeting’s outcome.

The candidates, Behnke said,”are outstanding.”

The five finalists all come from within Washington state, she said. Two submitted applications and the resumes of the other three were provided by the state’s community and technical college association. The association maintains a list of qualified candidates who could serve in such interim positions.

The five are applying for the interim position only and will not be considered for the permanent job, Behnke said.

Initially, the board decided to start interviews next week. However, Behnke said later the board will not need to act that quickly. A college vice president, Carol Werner, will serve as acting president until she retires on Oct. 31.

The trustees won’t have to rush the interview process and all of them can participate in the interviews, Behnke said. That would not have been possible in the shorter timeframe.

Until she spoke with Werner Friday evening, Behnke said the board thought an interim president needed to be hired and at the college by Monday, Aug. 24, or the president’s seat would go vacant. Bressler’s last day is the previous Friday.

The board also is beginning the formal process of hiring a new president. Finding a new president could take nine to 12 months, but Behnke said the time is worth it.

“We want to find the person who will be right for the college,” she said.

The college will hire an executive search consultant who will do an initial screening to determine the finalists for the permanent job.

The timeline calls for the search consultant to be hired in late November, after the board reviews proposals and interviews three finalists for the consulting job.