The Mathews County Board of Supervisors unanimously appointed Ramona Carter of serve as county administrator following a closed session on Wednesday, March 9.
Carter, who has served as Powhatan County’s Director of Public Works for more than six years, will begin her position with Mathews on April 4 at a salary of $140,000.
Supervisors’ chairman Paul Hudgins said that Carter is accustomed to working in a small county and will be good for Mathews. He praised her for her excellent qualifications and personality.
“She’s friendly, and you can tell she’s going to work well with people, and that’s half the job,” he said. “I am sure the citizens will be pleased.”
Hudgins said that it had been hard on the staff to serve under three different interim administrators, and he said the board is pleased that things can now return to normal.
“She’s coming at a good time,” he said. “Budget season is about to take off, and she can help.”
Carter is engaged to be married in two weeks, and she and her fiancé, Jack Wilson Jr., will be living in Deltaville, where Wilson owns a home. Hudgins said the board did not ask that the couple live in Mathews because board members did not want them to go through the financial hardship of buying a home. However, he said the board made it clear that they wanted her to be involved in the community, and she agreed.
Carter, whose last name will change to Wilson soon, has two adult children, a 26-year-old son and a 24-year-old daughter.
In a brief telephone interview, Carter said she was introduced to the Middle Peninsula a little over a year ago, and she fell in love with the people and the natural beauty of the area.
“I’m excited about being a part of the great team in Mathews and about serving the citizens of Mathews County,” she said.
Qualifications
Carter comes to Mathews with 25 years of experience in managing, designing, and overseeing utilities projects in both the public and private sector. According to her resume, she has been the Powhatan County’s Director of Public Works since 2015. She has also served the county as Acting County Administrator. Before that, she served for seven years as Assistant Director of Field Operations for the Western Virginia Water Authority. Prior to coming to Virginia in 2004, she lived and worked in British Columbia, Canada, and Pine Bluff, Arkansas.
A native of Canada, Carter holds a B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. She moved to the U.S. in 1998, and in 2014 earned a Masters of Public Administration from Walden University in Maryland. She is a Registered Professional Engineer in Virginia, West Virginia, and Arkansas and has been or currently is a member of a dozen professional or volunteer organizations, including the Virginia Rural Water Association Board, the American Public Works Association, the Alleghany YMCA Projects Committee, and the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Fund Raising Committee.
NOTE: Edited to reflect the preferred name of Ramona Carter’s fiancé