After nearly five years running the state's largest historical organization, Bill Veillette is stepping down as executive director of the New Hampshire Historical Society.

Veillette will leave the society Sept. 1 to become executive director of the Northeast Document Conservation Center, a nonprofit in Andover, Mass., that helps museums, libraries and archives preserve historic printed materials.

Veillette came to the New Hampshire Historical Society in 2004 with a personal passion for history and a professional business background. Members of the society's board of trustees credited the latter with helping to put the society on steady financial footing. Under Veillette's leadership, the society prepared a strategic business plan, sharpened its approach for increasing its endowment and hired a full-time development director.

"Bill has really gotten a grip on the financial situation," said Donald Gartrell, a member of the society's board of trustees. "I think we're in better shape than any time I've been on the board. And we're just using him as the sort of model of what we're looking for" in a successor.

The society runs the Tuck Library on Park Street in Concord and the Museum of New Hampshire History in the city's Eagle Square. But one of Veillette's goals as director was to expand the society's reach from the capital city.

"For years, we've behaved like a Concord institution and not so much like a statewide institution," Veillette said.

To change that, he reached out to local historical societies throughout the state and offered help in increasing their membership rolls and fundraising. He also pushed the society to set up exhibits in other parts of the state, including one about North Country history at the Mount Washington Hotel. Finally, to vastly increase the society's accessibility, Veillette has prepared the society for digitizing its entire collection and putting it online. That goal remains unrealized and will take an intense fundraising campaign to achieve. But Veillette said it's an important step for the society.

"We're sitting on this enormous collection of historical materials that people want access to. That's not a problem if you're physically close to Concord and can make an appointment or walk in the library. But the problem is not a lot of people are that close to Concord."

Beyond the financial planning, there were lighter moments in Veillette's term as director. Among the highlights: He persuaded inventor Dean Kamen to donate one of the early models of the Segway to the society's collection two years ago.

Veillette said he's sad to be leaving the society, but he's not cutting his ties to it. He's helping start the search for his successor and he remains a life member. Veillette and his family will continue to live in their historic home in Amherst, which was the site of former president Franklin Pierce's wedding.

"My first love is for New Hampshire and the New Hampshire Historical Society, and I don't think anything can budge that," he said.

Stanley Hamel, who's been a trustee of the society for 30 years, had nothing but praise for Veillette's tenure as director. He said Veillette's business acumen would likely shape the profile of his successor.

"In the future, I think we're all convinced that we need to look again for a business-manager type," Hamel said.

Asked what he and other trustees would be looking for in a new director, David Watters, a board member who's also a professor at the University of New Hampshire, said simply, "A clone."