The Select Board surprised the town’s longtime Zoning Board chairman by naming him Citizen of the Year at Saturday’s tree lighting ceremony.

Robert Neil Faiman Jr. said on Tuesday he felt a little undeserving of the Citizen of the Year award, because he considers his work on both the zoning and planning boards to be rewarding and somewhat of a hobby.

“Community service is not just a chore. It can be very interesting to do,” Faiman said. “You get to put some thought into how the town is going to grow and how it’s going to develop. And I think it’s simply intellectually interesting.”

Faiman is humble about his work on the town boards and said he thinks there are many other citizens that do as much for the town as he has. He does admit that a large part of the town’s zoning ordinance has his fingerprints on it, and at Saturday’s tree lighting ceremony, Selectman Dan Donovan said Faiman has changed the course of the town more than any other person he can remember.

Faiman started on both the planning and zoning boards in town in the early 1990s. He said he “discovered community service” when he moved to Wilton from Nashua in 1987.

“I’d been here a little while, and one of the existing Planning Board members wrote a letter to the editor telling people they should think about getting involved in town service, specifically on the Planning Board. So I said, ‘OK, I’ll try that.’ I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing at that point and I dropped out of the race, but I became interested in what was happening.”

After that, Faiman said, he was hooked. He attended both zoning and Planning Board meetings regularly to learn more about the laws. He was eventually asked if he would be interested in a position on the Zoning Board, which is an appointed position in Wilton.

“After being at just about every meeting for a year or two, they asked, ‘How would you like to be on the other side of the table,’ which is still the way we do it. If somebody is interested enough to come to the meetings, then they’re probably interested enough to be a board member.”

He was later elected to the Planning Board and has served on both boards ever since. He has held the position of zoning board chairman for almost as long as he has been on the board.

Faiman, who always enjoys an intellectual challenge, said he enjoys his job as a programmer for Intel. His computer knowledge has also helped him create, and maintain the zoning board Web site.

“I’m a programmer because I like programming. Back 13 years ago I actually got a home computer. Some people would come home from the office and want to do something else entirely. I thought, now I’ve got a computer at home to go play on.”

Another of Faiman’s interests is the outdoors. He enjoys hiking with his wife, Lynne Pentler, and spent many days on a mountain with his daughter Elspeth, who now lives in Boston.

Faiman’s love for intellectual challenges also led him to a relatively obscure outdoor sport in this country — orienteering.

He and his wife have attended many orienteering meets, where the goal is to navigate through the wilderness to predetermined destinations using only a map and compass.

Some of these meets can be very competitive, but for Faiman they are just another fun challenge.

“Whether it be work or community stuff, I tend to be someone who likes to see things done right. That doesn’t necessarily imply I have a lot to say about what should be done, but whatever you’re doing, I think it should be done right,” Faiman said.