Power Profile: Harrison Fry
Harrison Fry serves as the city administrator for Lake Ozark.
Originally from Tennessee, Lake Ozark City Administrator Harrison Fry hadn’t planned on moving far from home. But after coming to Lake Ozark, a town that takes its name from the nearby Lake of the Ozarks, he hasn’t looked back.
“I came up here to interview for the assistant city administrator position and fell in love with the community. They extended the job offer, and it has been the happiest thing that I never would have planned for myself,” said Fry.
Before coming to Lake Ozark, Fry received a master’s in public administration-economic development from Murray State University and began his career in Paducah, Kentucky. It was during his time in Kentucky that he first knew city administration was his calling.
“I fell in love with the career early on. I knew that I wanted to work in local government to try to make a difference in the kinds of services that are available and to help redefine a community,” said Fry. “Lake Ozark has given me that opportunity for three years now, and I’m very grateful for that.”
In 2020, he was hired as assistant city administrator of Lake Ozark and was promoted to city administrator two years later. As Lake Ozark city administrator, Fry manages employees, oversees the city budget and serves as the day-to-day point of contact for citizens.
“I am very proud of just having, in a very short period of time, seen how far the city has come. When I started here, we were getting ready to retire a lot of debt, had not had the opportunity to do a lot of community reinvestment or anything above what was necessary for us on a day-to-day basis,” said Fry. “Now we’re in a position where we’re able to start tackling some larger projects, address community issues with more and more perspectives and with better resources.”
With the Lake of the Ozarks playing such a large role in Lake Ozark, the city and Ameren have fostered a close partnership. During Fry’s tenure, Ameren brought a proposal to the Lake of the Ozarks Regional Economic Development Council to engage a commercial data analytics and retail recruitment firm to collect visitor-based demographic and consumer spending data that would be used to encourage further economic growth in the region.
“We’ve seen a lot of good data collected through that, and it is something we could not have afforded to take part in without Ameren’s partnership,” said Fry. “We're very excited to see that relationship continuing and see those data points over time turning into success stories for new development.”
Along with economic development for the area, Fry also spoke about the new substation Ameren is building to support the energy needs of the growing Lake-area community.
“This investment that they’re making right now in the substation on HH will help with peak load during the winter and summer months as the Lake has become a more year-round, occupiable space,” said Fry, “The folks on this side of the Lake will see a direct impact from that project this winter, and that's a result of Ameren listening to the need.”
And for Fry, working to build a stronger Lake Ozark is a goal that he and Ameren share.
“Obviously, there would not be a city of Lake Ozark or a broader Lake of the Ozarks without Ameren. This whole community is powered by Ameren,” said Fry. “We see that through the work they put into the area, whether within the city of Lake Ozark or the Lake overall. They care about these people, and they care about this area. I think that’s a very rare corporate presence, and I could not be happier with it.”