GREENFIELD — After working for the city of Greenfield for more than three decades, serving under six mayors, Greenfield utility director Mike Fruth is switching off his office light for the last time. Fruth’s retirement is effective today (Friday, Sept. 11).
Fruth remembers the exact date he began working for the city: June 2, 1986. He was hired by then-mayor Keith McClarnon as the city engineer, a position he would occupy for more than two decades.
Greenfield Board of Works member Kelly McClarnon has a longtime association with Fruth: He heard many times from both Fruth and from his father, the late Keith McClarnon, what the former mayor said when he hired Fruth: “Well, let’s just see how it goes.”
“Here it is all these years later, and it’s gone really, really well,” Kelly McClarnon said.
Fruth remained in the position of city engineer until 2012, when Mayor Dick Pasco asked him if he would be willing to serve in the new position of utility director, changing the structure of the utility department. The superintendents of water, wastewater and power and light would now report to Fruth, rather than directly to the mayor.
Once he took over, Fruth said, he wanted to help the utility superintendents operate their departments in the most effective way. Serving over 10,000 residential customers along with local businesses, he said he believed the city’s utilities should operate much like a business.
“In each of those utilities, we took a look at how they operate and tried to be more efficient,” Fruth said. “…It was our task in 2013 to improve the way we do business, and I think we’ve been able to do that.”
The list of projects Fruth has been involved with during his time in the city is a long one. He lists the extension of Broadway Street, the formation of Beckenholdt and Brandywine Parks, and his work on economic development as among his most significant achievements.
Buzz Krohn, a financial adviser for the city, began working with Greenfield the same year Fruth started as city engineer. Over the years, they’ve worked together on many projects.
“Mike’s been a key person in most every capital project that has been done in the city in the last 30, 40 years,” Krohn said.
Krohn said Fruth’s work on the city’s first tax increment financing district helped bring millions of dollars worth of development to Greenfield, and bond issues he supported have helped keep the city’s water and sewer costs down.
Kelly McClarnon said Fruth has been a major contributor to helping Greenfield grow. Fruth also was the first resource most people went to with questions about planning, engineering or economic development.
From now on, when those questions come up, “We’ll have to fight the reflex to call Mike,” McClarnon said.
Mayor Chuck Fewell agreed that Fruth’s institutional knowledge has been invaluable.
“He knows where every daggone manhole and sewer is in this city,” he said.
Fewell isn’t planning on letting all that experience walk out the door with Fruth, however; he said the city will be calling on him as it completes the process he helped start of building a new wastewater treatment plant.
Things have changed for the city since Fruth began working there in the 1980s. The city’s population has more than doubled, and the staffing of local government departments has had to keep up. The amount of technical knowledge required to work in utilities has also changed, he said.
Fruth is not originally from Greenfield; he grew up near a military base in Wisconsin and lived in England for a short time before moving to Indiana. He said there are a lot of positives about Greenfield that have kept him in the city for so long. It’s close to Indianapolis but has its own small-town identity, he said, and has always had good local government.
“The culture is a very friendly community,” Fruth said. “…Greenfield adopted me in 1986, and it’s been a pleasure to serve them in different capacities.”
The job has required a lot of time and energy, however. For the past nine years, Fruth has also undertaken a 63-mile commute each day after moving closer to his mother, who’s now 93 years old. After retiring, he looks forward to spending more time with her and with his seven grandchildren.
“We have very good people in the city of Greenfield,” he said. I’ve carried the torch long enough; it’s time to pass it on to other people, and I’m confident that Greenfield will be in good hands.”