Guy K. Shelton Jr. will retire on March 10 after 40 years as a health care administrator.

Shelton has been administrator for Riverside Convalescent Center-Mathews for a total of 23 years (most recently from 1999 on), with other service to Riverside including heading its Patrick Henry Hospital in Denbigh for seven years and a convalescent center in Hampton for 10 years.

“It’s home,” Shelton said of the Mathews facility, although he resides in Hampton. “Nobody is forgotten,” he said of all patients being looked in on by local residents.

Shelton said Mathews once had two nursing homes—one at Gwynn’s Island, which closed, and the other at New Point, which moved to Gloucester. Riverside took over the former Elizabeth Haynes Nursing Home on Gwynn’s Island and relocated to its current facility on Main Street.  

Riverside reopened the 24-bed facility at Gwynn’s Island and sought from the state—and received—a certificate...