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NCH Healthcare System chief executive officer Edward Morton is planning to retire by the end of 2007 after serving in the top post since 2000 during a 34-year career with the hospital system, according to the NCH board of trustees.

“(He) explained he wanted to pursue other interests,” said Carl Westman, chairman of the board of trustees. “We have appointed a succession committee.”

The board has hired an international search firm to help find his replacement and Morton has agreed to stay on during the search but not beyond his planned retirement date, Westman said.

Morton announced his plans last August to Westman and they issued a joint memo on May 19 to the full board of trustees and to NCH department heads explaining why a succession committee was formed quickly. Westman said the memo also was to address speculation that the board has been unhappy with Morton’s performance. Morton was not asked to resign, he said.

“Regrettably, some people in our community may have misinterpreted the board’s action of earnestly moving with planning for (his) successor as a possible signal that the Board of Trustees may be unsatisfied with the current leadership at NCH,” according to the internal memo. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”

Morton, 59, is on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Westman said there is one internal candidate who is being considered, Dr. Allen Weiss, president of NCH. No other names have been presented to the committee.

Dr. Richard Roland, second vice chairman of the board of trustees, said CEOs of hospitals customarily change every six to eight years and Morton is now in his seventh year.

“I think it’s a normal transition,” Roland said. “I really think it is good timing, having a new person come in with a high degree of energy.”

Roland is on the succession committee and said finding a new CEO could take six months or it could take a 1½ years.

“We fully anticipate overlap,” he said, referring to Morton’s staying on for a while after his successor starts. “The board’s position is we want a smooth transition.”

Morton’s plans were not a surprise because terms of his pension plan state that he is to retire next year, said Thomas Grady, a Naples attorney who has been on the board for five years.

“(His) plan assumes he would retire next year,” Grady said. “This has been in the works a long time.”

Grady said he would prefer Morton to stay on and said the hospital system last year had its best year ever financially.

“The hospital is doing great,” Grady said.

Morton became CEO in April 2001 after the retirement of William Crone, the long-term president and CEO. For about one year after Crone announced his retirement, Morton served as chief operating officer, a transition position until he assumed the top post.

He initially joined NCH in the early 1970s, initially as part of the auditing team of the Ernst & Ernst, and eventually became chief financial officer.

Morton’s salary was $614,434 during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2004, the most recent year NCH’s federal tax-exempt filings are available online.

The hospital system, which operates Naples Community and North Collier hospitals, is one of the largest employers in Collier County with 3,700 employees.

NCH also operates the Marco Healthcare Center in Marco Island and has a 50-percent ownership of the Bonita Community Health Center in Bonita Springs. NCH operates the Community Blood Center of Naples and Bonita Springs, and two wellness centers in Collier.

A for-profit holding company, Health Resources Corporation, operates DSI Laboratories and has ownership interest in Naples Diagnostic Imaging Centers Inc.