BERKELEY — Interim Cal athletic director Michael Williams said publicly for the first time Monday he would like to keep the job on a permanent basis.

“I have not offered, they have not asked,” Williams said in an exclusive interview. “My understanding is they want to get further into the process.

“If they come to me and say, ‘Is this something you’re interested in?’ Sure.”

The search committee, in a news release Monday, said it is impressed with the quality of potential candidates that have expressed interest. The timetable for hiring a new A.D. remains late April, the news release said.

Williams, a Cal graduate who served in volunteer campus roles for a dozen years, said in June he intended to take the A.D. assignment on an interim basis, presumably not for more than a year. But he has warmed to the job and received favorable feedback from Cal Chancellor Nicholas Dirks.

“I’ve been doing this now for eight months. There was a much different feel to things in June than there is today,” he explained. “I’m actually doing the job — I’m hiring, I’m firing, I’m evaluating. I’ve had the experience with the student-athletes. I’ve had the experience with the recruits.

“There are things in this job you can get nowhere else.”

Cal’s chain of command was altered after Sandy Barbour was fired as athletic director, and Williams reports directly to Dirks. He said the two have a standing weekly meeting.

“So he’s pretty up-to-date on what’s going on here,” Williams said. “I don’t have a sense that the chancellor is disappointed in how the department is being run.”

Williams was a wrestler at Cal, graduating in 1982. He worked as an executive with Barclays Global Investments before retiring. With Cal, he is vice chair of the UC Berkeley Foundation and was a member of the Chancellor’s Task Force on Academics and Athletics.