Smith received his bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Wisconsin-Stout and studied for his MBA at the Keller School of Management in Chicago.
Smith and his wife, Alice, first met through a blind date in Appleton, where Alice was working as a home economics teacher. They were married 10 months later in Alice’s hometown of Kilkenny, Minn., and will celebrate their 48th wedding anniversary in August.
For more than 30 years, Smith worked in the material handling business. As his career with a conveyor systems firm progressed, the family moved quite often, with Wisconsin stops at Sullivan and Germantown in addition to stints in Minnesota, Illinois and Connecticut. Eventually, they purchased a fuel company at Phillips in northern Wisconsin, which was their last move before retiring to Georgetown, Texas.
The Smiths have a son, Jason, a daughter, Abby, and five grandchildren. The fraternal tradition will continue in the Smith family for at least the next generation — both Jason and Abby’s husband, Greg, are also Shriners.
Smith’s older brother John, a retired career Caledonia firefighter and former longtime fire chief, still lives in Racine County.
Charting the future of Shriners International
Smith became a Mason on Feb. 13, 1999 and a Shriner in 2004. He joined the fraternity as a way to acknowledge and give back to the organizations that had assisted a nephew who had orthopedic difficulties and received care at Shriners Hospitals for Children-Chicago.
