Tryon’s new town manager shares thoughts on his new home

Interview and photographs by Michael O’Hearn

In August, Tryon welcomed a new town manager by the name of Zach Ollis, 30, an Appalachian State graduate with an undergraduate degree in communication and a master’s in public administration. He arrived from a slightly larger town, Wilson’s Mills, located outside of Raleigh, N.C.

Ollis officially began in Tryon August 15, and said the experience has been good in terms of working in a beautiful and busy town that he said is bursting with character. Ollis talks about how he got to this position and his ideas for the town going forward.

How has the experience been so far since you started in August?

It’s been good so far. I’ve worked in a larger town with about 2,500 people but it wasn’t as busy as Tryon. It’s a beautiful town and, once it cools off, I’ll be able to walk to work more. It’s interesting because there aren’t many small towns that have what Tryon has. When you really break it down, you’re not going to find small towns with a movie theater and a fine arts center. It’s a great place to be.

What is your outlook for the town and what would you like to do for it?

I want to watch the town grow and maintain some of the history that has made it great to begin with. But for the town I want to bring stability to my position. I feel I can come in and do some hands on stuff and maybe look around to make us more efficient. It’s all about making the town better and providing a better level of service to the citizens.

You graduated from Appalachian State?

Yes, I did get my undergraduate degree in communications and after that I ended up working at a homeless shelter. It’s an 18,000 square foot facility and I can’t remember my title but it was something like shelter manager. It had 100 beds and fed 300 people a day. I did that while I was in grad school. I went back to Appalachian State for grad school and ended up working full time and going to grad school full time. I ended up working in Wilson’s Mills and then ended up here.

Do you feel like your experience at the homeless shelter prepared you for working as town manager?

Oh, yeah. One of the biggest things about working at the shelter is that you’re providing services and housing to more than 100 people a day and feeding over 300 people three times a day in one of the worst crises of their lives. These people are stressed all the time and the emotions are at a peak and it’s a really rough place. I learned how to stay calm during chaos, and communication skills.

Basically, just how to talk to people, how to treat people and how to look at something through someone else’s eyes. Someone may call in to complain about a sewer system, and for me, it could be very easy to say that it is a phone call to pass on to someone else but in reality this is someone’s house that they live in and it’s someone’s life that is getting interrupted. The shelter prepared me a lot in life.

When the weather cools down, you said you wanted to be able to walk to work. Is fitness a big aspect of your life?

Yes, I used to work out every day but since I’ve been here I’ve slacked off. I love being outdoors and like to fish, stay outdoors and do a lot of hiking since I went to App. I’m definitely into fitness, and this is a great place for it as this is a great location in the mountains not only for kayaking, fishing, fly fishing, hiking, hunting and it’s all out here. Very few small mountain towns have something like this and I think there’s a lot of growth here when you look at the bone structure in terms of shopping and tourism.

People complain about towns growing and dying, but towns evolve and I think Tryon is going through an evolution right now. Towns are like a living and breathing entity and you can watch it change over time. I think we’re on the cusp of something good. •