People You Should Know: Andy Lee

Andy Lee

Retired; new member of the city of Columbia Planning and Zoning Commission

AGE: 64
YEARS LIVED IN COLUMBIA: 10
ORIGINAL HOMETOWN: Houston
EDUCATION: South Texas Junior College, University of Texas at Austin (Go Longhorns!)
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT: I’ve always believed in giving back to the community you live in and have been a member of Rotary in every city where my family and I have lived, including Northwest Rotary here. Along the way I have served on various boards and committees, such as Boys & Girls Town, United Way, Meals on Wheels, Special Olympics, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Texas Association of Broadcasters, Louisiana Association of Broadcasters, Jamie Farr Toledo Classic, city of Columbia’s Infrastructure Task Force and now the Planning and Zoning Commission.
PROFESSIONAL BACKGROUND: I worked in the television industry for more than 40 years and started at age 16 at KTRK-TV in Houston. In the early part of my television career, one of the more interesting things I did was work as the ringside camera operator at the Cassius Clay (before he became Mohammed Ali)/Buster Mathis heavyweight boxing match in the Astrodome. I was also a camera operator during the Mercury and Apollo space missions. (I still have my NASA credentials.) I was in production, local sales, general sales management, station manager and finally general manager. I came to Columbia, transferred yet again, as general manager of KMIZ-TV and KQFX-TV. After the stations were sold, I worked as a business development officer for a local bank.
A FAVORITE RECENT PROJECT: Being a member of the city’s Infrastructure Task Force. Our job was to inform and recommend to the City Council ways to pay for our city’s infrastructure in the future.
A COLUMBIA BUSINESSPERSON I ADMIRE AND WHY: Mayor Bob McDavid. Bob has taken on the job of mayor, which requires almost endless time and energy, and is doing so with great skill and enthusiasm.
IF I WEREN’T DOING THIS FOR A LIVING, I WOULD: Be a professional golfer, without the skill
to do so.
BIGGEST CAREER OBSTACLE I’VE OVERCOME AND HOW: Moving my family to eight different cities — Dallas; Mobile, Ala.; Austin; Toledo, Ohio; Monroe, La.; Wichita Falls, Texas; and Odessa, Texas — as the job dictated.
WHAT PEOPLE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THIS PROFESSION: In the television business, you go where they send you.
WHAT I DO FOR FUN: Play golf, read fiction and travel.
FAMILY: My beautiful wife of 30 years, Trisha, a Realtor with RE/MAX Boone Realty; and sons Ben, a student at Columbia College, and Cooper, a student at City College of San Francisco.
FAVORITE PLACE IN COLUMBIA: Country Club of Missouri — good friends, good golf course and good food.
ACCOMPLISHMENT I’M MOST PROUD OF: My family.
MOST PEOPLE DON’T KNOW THAT I: In my younger days I played tackle football from the fourth grade through high school, raced motorcycles and did a little rodeo.