Nobody doesn’t like Michael C. Cryor.

‘‘He’s smart, he’s nice, he’s wonderful with people, he’s a hard worker. He’s everything you could want in a friend and an extraordinary person,” said Michael Barnes, a former congressman. Cryor was the campaign manager for Barnes’ 1986 U.S. Senate bid.

‘‘He’s very well respected in the business community,” said Donald C. Fry, president and CEO of the Greater Baltimore Committee. Fry is a Democrat who served in the House of Delegates and the Maryland Senate. ‘‘I think he’s seen as a sage political adviser.”

Gov. Martin O’Malley selected Cryor to succeed outgoing chairman Terry L. Lierman, who is leaving May 31 to become U.S. Rep. Steny H. Hoyer’s chief of staff.

The selection must be confirmed by a vote of some 300 of the state’s Democratic Central Committee members, scheduled for June 16.

Cryor, 60, has been a close adviser to O’Malley. He helped manage his ‘‘Believe” campaign for the city of Baltimore. And he had O’Malley’s ear during the 2006 gubernatorial campaign.

‘‘I have enjoyed being part of his network, and I’ve been in politics for a while,” Cryor said Tuesday.

His government resume includes work for U.S. Rep. Parren J. Mitchell of Baltimore. Besides his work for Barnes, Cryor worked on the 1988 presidential campaign of U.S. Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. In 1988, he also was the deputy director for the national party’s platform committee.

Since then, he has been a consultant with clients ranging from AT&T, IBM and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield. For a time he represented Magna Entertainment, which has an interest in the Pimlico racetrack and has been at the center of the gambling debate in Maryland.

Cryor’s company, The Cryor Group, now has only a single client, Forest City Science and Technology Group of Cambridge, Mass., which is the primary developer of a biotechnology park at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He said he has no interest in expanding his client list now.

Before consulting, Cryor was an associate dean at Morgan State University. He was a psychologist. He hosted a public affairs program in Baltimore television.

Cryor has given little indication of the direction in which he’ll take the party, saying he would rather meet first with staff and elected officials. He did say he wanted to build on Lierman’s work.

‘‘The role of the party is to advance the interests and needs of its citizens through the wisdom and hard work, integrity and ideas of the Democratic leadership,” he said.

As chairman, Cryor will oversee the party’s nuts-and-bolts decisions about bricks and mortar. Some inside the party want to add offices in Western Maryland or on the Eastern Shore. That will be a function of fundraising.

And Democrats need to make a decision about their central office in Annapolis. The party envies the Republicans, who have a prominent storefront space in the capital. If the Democratic Party owns its own building, that would give the party some equity and financial flexibility in the future.

Lierman treated the chairmanship, which is unpaid, like a full-time job. Cryor said he would not.

‘‘I am not wealthy, nor am I taking vows of poverty,” he said. ‘‘I do intend to make this a real investment. It will not be ceremonial. ... People will be able to count me present and active.”

Between Lierman of Chevy Chase and his predecessor, Isiah ‘‘Ike” Leggett of Burtonsville, Montgomery County has held the party chairmanship since 2002.

O’Malley called the county’s Democratic Central Committee chairwoman, Karen Britto, about his Baltimore-area selection. Britto said she is pleased with the pick.

‘‘People have said a lot of good things about his ability to hit the ground running. We’ll see a lot of him,” she said.

Before Cryor’s nomination was announced, several Maryland Democrats said they wanted to see an accomplished fundraiser serve as chairman.

‘‘Unfortunately, that’s not his strongest suit,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. said. ‘‘We’re going to have to continue to raise money so Democrats can continue to get their message out to the people on why we have to make the tough decisions we have to.”

But Cryor has helped O’Malley raise money, and his roles with Barnes and Biden involved raising contributions.

‘‘He’s a communications wiz, and fundraising is about communications,” said David Paulson, a party spokesman. ‘‘We already have a professional fundraising staffer, and when you can put the governor’s name on a fundraising letter, the pressure to be an experienced fundraiser decreases.”

And Barnes said Cryor’s contacts would help the Democrats raise money.

‘‘A lot of us who know him and who care about him and who want to make sure he’s successful will want to help him with fundraising,” said Barnes, who is now a lawyer for Covington and Burling in Washington.

Plus the role of the chairman changed with the results of the 2006 election.

‘‘It’s drastically different, the job for the state chairman, whether you have the governorship. If you have it, the party is the political operation for the governor,” said Kevin Igoe, a Republican political operative.

‘‘When you don’t have it, the state party chairmanship is a more visible role and one in which you are more responsible for the fund raising aspects of trying to build the party for a comeback,” he said.

Still, Miller (D-Dist. 27) of Chesapeake Beach said any party needs to have active fundraising regardless of who’s in Government House. Gov. Robert L. Ehrich Jr.’s fundraising did not benefit the Republican Central Committee.

‘‘So basically it was the Bob Ehrlich Show and the Michael Steele Show, and the people at the bottom of the food chain didn’t benefit,” he said.

Now the GOP needs to borrow money to pay for overhead.

And like the Republicans, Democrats have the expense of a headquarters and full-time staffs.

‘‘Unfortunately, legislators are very parochial, and say they have to run their own campaigns rather than send money to central committees,” Miller said.

State and federal campaign reports show Cryor donated $1,350 to state Sen. Nathaniel J. McFadden (Dist. 45) of Baltimore, $1,000 to O’Malley’s gubernatorial effort, $1,000 to Sen. Catherine E. Pugh (Dist. 40) of Baltimore, $500 to U.S. Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Dist. 7) of Baltimore, $250 to Kweisi Mfume’s U.S. Senate run, $250 to Sen. Ulysses Currie (Dist. 25) of Forestville, $100 to Baltimore City Councilman Keiffer Mitchell and $57 to Baltimore State’s Attorney Patricia C. Jessamy.

The nomination of Cryor, who is African American, also fulfills calls by black leaders to tap a minority as party chairman. Some party members were frustrated that the only African American on the Democrats’ statewide ticket last year was Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown.

Cryor brings both diversity and experience to the position, said Sen. Verna L. Jones (D-Dist. 44) of Baltimore, chairwoman of the Legislative Black Caucus. She applauded the pick and pointed to other leaders — recently hired executive director Maya Goines and first vice chairwoman Lauren Dugas Glover — as more signs of a diverse Democratic Party.

Cryor said he would be impartial during the upcoming presidential campaign. Although he praised U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.) and former senator John R. Edwards of North Carolina, he singled out U.S. Sen. Barack H. Obama (Ill.) for energizing people turned off by politics.

Of the upcoming election, Cryor said: ‘‘We are not in a coasting period in history. It does call for enlightened leadership, compassionate leadership, and it calls for more people engaged in the process.”

Staff Writer Alan Brody contributed to this report.

Michael E. Cryor

Age: 60

Residence: Baltimore

Occupation: Consultant, heads The Cryor Group LLC

Education: Morgan State University, Montclair State (N.J.) University

Experience: Psychologist, political campaigns, public affairs, college administration

Family: Wife, Erica, who is the director of development at Morgan; daughter, Maisha, a lawyer assigned to international trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce