FERRIDAY — Though he won’t need many introductions around the office, Miss-Lou residents will have to tack on a new title to a familiar face next time they visit Riverland Medical Center.

Former Natchez Community Hospital CEO Donny Rentfro accepted the position of administrator for Riverland Medical Center last week and started work on Monday.

“The opportunity to stay in the Miss-Lou and work with a great team of physicians, medical staff, employees and community members was just a dream come true,” Rentfro said. “All the stars aligned for this to happen, and I’m very excited to have this opportunity.”

The new hire replaces Lana Stamper, who turned in her resignation effective June 8, after two years at the hospital.

The contract was finalized at a specially called Riverland Medical Center Board of Commissioners meeting May 11, and sent to Rentfro for his review, said board Chairman Jim Graves.

“We’re excited about keeping Donny in the area, especially after the great work he did over at Community,” Graves said. “Everybody hates to see Mrs. Stamper leave, but we’re glad to see Donny coming in.”

And even though his contract won’t be ratified until the board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Graves said he and the board wanted Rentfro to begin shadowing Stamper’s work as soon as possible.

“We have a really good transition going right now,” Graves said. “When you hire someone from out of town there’s that stage where he has to get to know everybody, but everybody knows Donny, so he won’t have that learning curve.”

Rentfro received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business administration from Northeast Louisiana University in Monroe in 1980 and 1990.

Rentfro has spent 20 years working with business development and hospital operations in health care organizations across the Southeast.

And even though he’s no stranger to the hospital field or administrator positions, Rentfro said the ability to work alongside Stamper until her last day will be extremely helpful.

“Often times a new administration does not have the opportunity to have such a comfortable hand off as Mrs. Stamper has afforded to me, so that is nice and gives me a huge leg up,” Rentfro said. “I think she was able to make some great positive changes in the time she was with Riverland.”

Before being named Natchez Community’s CEO in January 2010, Rentfro worked as the CEO at River Medical Center in Jackson, Ky.

He resigned from Community in March after two years as CEO.

After the reigns are comfortably passed, Rentfro said he’s looking forward to expanding Riverland to better serve the Miss-Lou.

“We need to be looking to see what kind of additional services we can offer and say, ‘What’s needed in the community and if people are leaving the Miss-Lou for health care, can we figure out how to offer those services to people and keep them here?’

“That’s the kind of work I’ve been doing for 20 years, so hopefully that experience base and a fresh set of eyes over everything will be just what we need.”

Rentfro and his wife, Missy, have two children, Paige, 11, and Garrett, 9.