One look across the Sheepscot River to a snow-covered Wiscasset was all it took for Kim Andersson to know that was the town for her.

In January 2005, she and Swedish husband Mikael, a past chef at the Swedish embassy in Budapest, drove from New York City to Edgecomb, where developer Roger Bintliff was looking for a chef at the Sheepscot Harbour Village and Resort that was about to open.

“It was just snowing like crazy and we got here after dark, and stayed at the inn, and went to sleep. And in the morning, opened up those curtains and there was the river and fresh new snow and bright blue sky, and there was Wiscasset, twinkling, across the river. And I said, ‘Mikael, I want to live there.’”

Her affinity for Wiscasset has grown in the years the family has lived in it. That’s partly because it’s similar to what Tuckerton, New Jersey, was like when she was growing up there in the 1970s. It’s grown along with much of southern New Jersey and has a WalMart now, she said. But back then it was a one-stoplight town.

“We’re so lucky to live here,” Andersson said about Wiscasset. “This town is special. People come from all over the world to visit here.” Like her hometown in New Jersey, her husband’s in Sweden was also small. “And so this small town is right for us, and for our family. We like small-town values, and the safety of it, and the cleanliness of it, and the fresh air, and everything that’s Maine.

“I feel like we hit the jackpot, by coming here.”

Andersson, 45, recently started work as Wiscasset Middle High School’s alternative education teacher. She’s been around the Wiscasset schools for years, in a number of roles. Daughter Linnea and son David are fifth and sixth graders, respectively, at Wiscasset Elementary School. When Wiscasset was in Sheepscot Valley Regional School Unit 12, Andersson represented the town on the district’s board of directors.

Andersson has chaired and still co-chairs the local nonprofit group Partners in Education (PIE). She has also served stints as a long-term substitute. Those experiences and helping with school field trips when she worked at Morris Farm on Gardiner Road helped renew an interest in teaching that dated back to college. She wanted to teach high school English, but a subbing experience in Atlantic City at about the age of 20 discouraged her. She received her bachelor of arts degree in English literature in 1993 at then-Stockton College (now University) in Pomona, New Jersey, and went on to work for the philanthropic nonprofit Soros Foundation.

She misses the catered lunches and occasionally misses the travel that came with her past career, but misses nothing else about it. She loves teaching and she and her husband, who recently became chef at Lincoln Academy, are here to stay, she said.

For the past two years, she’s been an educational technician at WMHS, still Wiscasset High when she started. While in the job, she tapped one of the benefits — reimbursement for course credits. She earned the remaining credentials for her teacher certification in grades seven through 12 English.

So one of the great things about her getting the teaching job is that the town is benefiting from its investment in her studies, Andersson observed.

The new job has come with an element of serendipity: One of her substitute teaching gigs was for a full school year with the Class of 2020, when it was in sixth grade. Compared to her three months in Title One math, she said, “It was like jumping into the deep end of the pool without my floaties. But I learned a lot ... and that was a great year.” Now at WMHS, she’s the freshman advisor for the Class of 2020.

With the alternative education position restored to full-time this year, Andersson is looking forward to what she’ll be able to create for the program. Its students have not been successful in regular education classrooms, so the goal is to get them excited about school again and keep them going to school, Andersson explained.

She already knows them from an after-school program and her other past work in the schools. “And I’m so thrilled that I’m going to get to hopefully help them realize their potential, and realize that they are smart, and can do things, and they could go to college if they want to, and they could get a great job. I just want to help build up kids.

“I feel like this is my dream job ... I’ve been charged with thinking out of the box, and doing something non-traditional.” Learning through service in the community will be a part of it, she said.

Andersson’s late mother was a third-grade teacher in New Jersey, and had always encouraged her to go into teaching. So getting hired this summer was a little emotional. “She would be so proud,” Andersson said.