SARATOGA SPRINGS – John Nelson, former healthcare executive and Yaddo finance director, devoted husband, father, friend, volunteer and martini aficionado, died last Wednesday. He was 91.

The cause was complications from a fall, his son Andrew Nelson said.

Nelson spent his career in the non-profit sector, pioneering and building some of the country's first affordable health care networks. Working with organizations such as the United Auto Workers, Xerox and Kodak he witnessed corporate America's gradual adoption of managed health.

"In the 1960s I was considered a communist," Nelson said. "In the 1970s I was a socialist. By the 1980s I was considered a capitalist, yet the work was always the same!"

John Andrew Nelson was born on November 25, 1925 in Jamestown, NY, to Andrew Fredrick Nelson and the former Mable Maude Groom. He and his identical twin brother James joined sisters Evelyn and Alfreida (all deceased) in a childhood challenged by the Great Depression but bolstered by the family's strong affection for each other and the extended Groom clan known for their distinctive noses, fashion sense, love of social gatherings and flights of imagination.

Nelson inherited all four attributes.  The description "Dress Shark" appeared below his 1943 Jamestown High School senior photo. Rarely was he less. The only exception: his home office. So great was the disaster of papers, books, magazines and clutter of FEMA-worthy proportions his wife Onalee "Lee" Tyrrell, who survives him, refused to step foot in the room for 20 years.

It was the Groom imagination that would serve Nelson most ably, however, allowing him to see and create opportunities where other did not.

"Lead out," his mother would admonish him. And Nelson did. Taking every chance that came his way to rise with the century.

After serving in WWII as pharmacist's assistant in the U.S. Navy, an experience that fired his interest in health care, Nelson used the GI Bill to attend the University of Buffalo, graduating in 1950 and in1956 from Columbia University's School of Public Health. Afterwards, he worked as assistant administrator at Brooklyn's Methodist Hospital and Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University Hospital. In 1961, he arrived in Detroit to serve as administrator for Metropolitan Hospital, a forward-looking medical group practice. In 1971 he moved to Rochester, NY, to lead the Genesee Valley Group Health Association, an HMO forerunner. In 1979 Nelson arrived in New Haven, Conn., becoming CEO and president of the Community Health Care Plan and a regular lecturer at Yale University School of Public Health until 1991 when he arrived at Yaddo.

Engaging with the literary world while helping the arts community enter the computer age was a job Nelson relished until his 2002 retirement. Meanwhile he and Lee embraced Saratoga Springs, delighting in its cultural offerings but most of all its warm, welcoming community. Nelson served on many local boards and organizations including the Saratoga Springs Rotary, Saratoga's Art Council, Mary's Haven, GHI/HMO and the Chekov Sisters City program.

These positions spawned constant social events for which Nelson was aptly prepared. His charm was legendary. Even at age 90 he could "work the room" like someone half his age, insuring all were both welcomed and well watered. (When not playing host, Nelson frequently admonished his bartender to not "bruise the gin" in his martini.) His laugh was distinctive, a light yet enthused guffaw that made his eyes twinkle.

Nelson saved his brightest smile for his wife Lee, his best friend and able partner since their 1947 meeting in a freshman year college botany class. There the handsome, 6'2" WWII vet noticed, then sidled up to, the brunette from Amherst, NY, to enquire if he could borrow her specimen drawings. He wed her in 1951.  Off they went, raising twin boys – sons Andrew of Washington, DC, and Fred of Chatham, NJ – and a daughter, Laura Nelson-Neilsen of Hudson, Mass. All survive him.

The couple's union remained unbroken to the end. "I loved you always," she wrote him on a card marking their 66th wedding anniversary. Nelson carefully annotated the date "January 17, 2017" in his precise block print and tucked it safely away from the avalanche of paper threatening to engulf his desktop.

Besides the immediate family, other survivors, some possessing the famed "Groom nose" and fashion sense, include two grandchildren, Erik and Connor, nieces Sue Jacobson and Marlene Roode, nephews Jim Carlson, James Nelson and John Nelson and assorted great-nieces and nephews.

There will be no funeral. Instead an autumn memorial service is planned. In lieu of flowers donate to Saratoga Springs Rotary Scholarship Fund at PO Box 4423; the Wesley Foundation, 156 Lawrence Street (both are Saratoga Springs, NY, 12866) or spend an afternoon volunteering in your own community. Martinis afterwards are encouraged.