DENVER -- Vowing a championship team on the field every season, Dan O'Dowd was named general manager of the Colorado Rockies on Monday, following a month-long search.

O'Dowd, 41, is considered one baseball's brightest executives.

	Dan O'Dowd is beginning his fourth season as the Rockies' GM.

He was assistant general manager of the Cleveland Indians from 1993 to 1998 but was out of baseball this season as he sought to be a general manager.

O'Dowd was the Indians' director of player development from 1988 to 1992, overseeing the farm system that included the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, now the Rockies' Triple-A affiliate.

"Dan had a big role in building a consistent winner in Cleveland," Rockies chairman Jerry McMorris said. "Now, we want to bring that winning attitude to Colorado. We feel Dan was clearly the best candidate to move this organization to the levels we want to achieve."

O'Dowd, who signed a five-year contract, replaces Bob Gebhard, the Rockies' original general manager, who resigned under pressure on Aug. 20.

"This is a very exciting situation to come into," O'Dowd said. "The stability of this organization is a plus in my mind. The tremendous fan support, this facility (Coors Field) and a solid foundation have already been laid here.

"Our goal, very simply, is to put a championship-contending club on the field each and every year. I come from a winning background and I think I know what it takes to win. We will raise the level of expectations internally in this organization. We will be hard-working, we will be smart and we will be creative.

"I was in Colorado Springs for five years, and so I kind of got a feel for what altitude ball is all about. I feel pretty good about my background coming in here."

During O'Dowd's tenure in Cleveland, the Indians won four straight AL Central titles (1995-98) and advanced to the World Series in 1995 and 1997.

As the Indians' director of player development, he cultivated All-Stars such as Charles Nagy, Manny Ramirez, Jeff Shaw and Jim Thome. During that period, the Sky Sox advanced to the Pacific Coast League playoffs four straight seasons (1989-92) and won the league championship in 1992.

Before joining the Indians, O'Dowd worked five years for the Baltimore Orioles.

The Rockies stood at 67-83 and in last place in the NL West heading into Monday's games. With the season ending and manager Jim Leyland intending to resign after the season, O'Dowd faces some immediate challenges.

He denied that Leyland's resignation signals a red flag, saying, "It really was not a concern of mine. I think Jim made a decision based on his own set of parameters, whatever they were. I think this (manager) is a jewel of a job, and I think this is a jewel of a ballclub.

"Obviously, I have given a lot of thought to (selecting a new manager). A manager has to possess certain characteristics. He must be able to create an environment that allows every player to play to the best of his ability. He has to be a great communicator. He has to be well organized. He has to have instinctive intelligence. He has to be able to deal with confrontation. And he has to be a leader. I want a manager that possesses a lot of those qualities."

O'Dowd planned to meet with the baseball operations staff on Tuesday. He will return to his home in the Cleveland area Tuesday night, then report for work in Denver early next week while his wife, Jackie, and two children sell their home and make the move.

"In the next few days I'll make decisions about staff," he said. "I think there are good people here. Some of them may need to be shifted to other areas to maximize their skills. I also have people I've worked with in the past that I may look to bring in here."

O'Dowd said he and his wife listed several criteria for any job he would apply for, including quality of life, stability of the ownership, a clear decision-making process and a base of good people on the staff.

The only other candidates to interview for the job were Gary Hughes, the Rockies' vice president of player personnel, and Omar Minaya, assistant general manager of the New York Mets.