After 49 years at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Carlton H. Hershner Jr., as he says, slipped quietly into retirement on April 1 of last year.

Hershner came to VIMS as a University of Virginia graduate student in 1971 where he spent six years working on his doctorate. Originally from Pennsylvania, Hershner said he thought he would die from the Virginia heat his first year at the Gloucester Point campus.

Prior to working on his doctorate at VIMS, he received his Bachelor of Science degree from Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. He lived on the VIMS campus where he went to class and did research along with two dozen other graduate students.

While at VIMS, Hershner learned about the Abingdon Volunteer Fire and Rescue Department. He began volunteering with the department and became a certified Emergency Medical Technician and later a cardiac tech. He served with Abingdon Volunteer Fire and Rescue for 25 years, where he was president and chief for several o...