Meet Cheryl
Cheryl Harrison-Lee
Cheryl currently serves as the CEO of Harrison-Lee Development Consulting Company. She serves as the chief technical advisor for the City of Kansas City, Missouri Central City Economic Development Sales Tax District providing expertise on the $100M sales tax. She created the district’s first strategic plan which received the State of Missouri’s 2021 American Planning Association Outstanding Public Outreach, Program, Project, Tool, or Community Initiative Award. Additional accomplishments include providing the City of Kansas City Economic Development Corporation with leadership development support and implementation of industry best practices. She is responsible for preparing the action plan to implement the Cultural Assessment Report for the City of Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department..
As CEO, Ms. Harrison-Lee served as the Interim County Administrator for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County. During her tenure, she led the efforts to conduct organizational assessments, developed the framework for an economic development strategic plan, created “UG Forward”, a vision and strategy to transform the 2,300-employee organization to high performance, and established an employee leadership development initiative.
She was appointed by Governor Kelly to serve as Executive Director for the Office of Recovery and established the framework, strategic priorities, and financial reporting for use of the $1.034B CARES federal allocation to the State of Kansas to address the impacts of the COVID-19 global pandemic. She led the effort to distribute federal grant funding to over 100 counties statewide and train cities, counties, and state agencies on the use of federal funds to address the health and economic impacts of COVID-19.
Education
Ms. Harrison-Lee holds a graduate degree from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s degree in journalism from the University of South Carolina. She is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Senior Executives in State and Local Government Program. Additionally, she completed the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative Program.
Experience
Ms. Harrison-Lee’s experience includes employment in statewide, regional, and local government sector as well as private consulting firms. She is an accomplished municipal administrator in Florida and Kansas. Her experience includes the City of Orlando, City of Daytona Beach, City of Titusville, City of Ormond Beach, State of Kansas, City of Gardner and the Unified Government of Wyandotte County.
Significant professional accomplishments include master plan approval for a $457 mixed use urban entertainment center, developing a plan for reuse of the Orlando Naval Training Center and annexation and master plan for development of 7,500 acres project Lake Nona home to over 50,000 new residents and Florida’s first gigabit community and a national sports and performance district.
In addition, she was the chief development officer for the Daytona Live Project, a 71 acre tract of land proposed to include more than 400,000 square feet of retail, service and business uses, 450 multi-family units, a hotel, and a 2,500 seat movie theater. The project has an overall economic benefit of $172 million for state and local taxes and payroll with 2,400 new jobs. The construction economic impact is $855 million.
Ms. Harrison-Lee has initiated and led several citizen engagement efforts including a Citizen Participation Plan. The Citizen Participation Plan was developed to encourage more involvement on key development projects to ensure neighborhood compatibility was evaluated and resident concerns were adequately addressed. Further she has successfully implemented a 3-C, three prong approach to improving communication with community partners, residents, agencies and neighboring jurisdictions in three different municipalities. The new approach was entitled 3-C, representing Collaboration, Communication, and Civic Engagement.
Ms. Harrison-Lee served as District Manager for Public Transportation with the Florida Department of Transportation, where she was responsible for a $180 million transportation capital projects for 2.5 million residents. She had program oversight for five transit agencies, four commercial airports and over 150 public/ private airports. Her experiences include studying municipal issues statewide, nationally, and internationally. She was selected to take part in a United States delegation to Hong Kong and Japan on an International Transit Study Mission to learn about land use, development and transportation.
As the City Administrator for the City of Gardner from 2012 to 2018, she led development of organizational assessments and restructuring to transform the city to a high-performance organization, development of a 20-year Capital Improvement Program with included construction of a new public safety justice center and positioning the city for annexation of 6,000 acres and over $400 million of private investments. She led employee engagement efforts which resulted in achieving results consistent with Fortune 100 companies.
Awards and Recognitions
Ms. Harrison-Lee was featured nationally in Essence magazine for her accomplishments in the profession and recognized by the University of Florida with the Distinguished Alumnus Award. During her tenure as CEO of the City of Gardner, Ms. Harrison-Lee developed a strategic plan resulting in the city receiving the highest level of recognition awarded for governmental entities that demonstrate a commitment to collecting, using and sharing performance data to enhance transparency and continually improve their organizations and communities. In addition, her work resulted in the City of Gardner receiving its first Government Finance Officers Association Distinguished Budget Award.
Ms. Harrison-Lee’s professional recognitions and affiliations include International City Management Association, American Institute of Certified Planners, American Planning Association, and University of Florida Board of Regents Fellow. She is a credentialed manager through the International City Management Association (ICMA). She served as a member of ICMA Strategic Planning Task Force, MARC Sustainability Committee, SW Johnson County EDC, and Gardner Edgerton Chamber of Commerce. She is the immediate past Chair for the Kansas Board of Regents.
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