About Me

THE WORK STUFF

I am a versatile, Arizona-based professional with over 30 years of leadership experience in the government, nonprofit and higher education sectors. My work has produced measurable success for my employers and clients, especially in project management, communications, strategic planning, process development, system implementation, and fundraising. At bottom line: I get things done, efficiently and effectively.

I am a graduate of the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, the Naval Supply Corps School, and the University at Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. I served for ten years with the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, first as an active duty Naval Supply Corps Officer, then as a civilian employee of the U.S. Department of Energy.

After leaving Federal service, I worked in salaried positions as a fundraising professional, communications and public relations director, operations manager and nonprofit CEO, while also successfully managing numerous freelance, contract, consulting, and board roles. In late 2019, I retired from full-time salaried work to focus exclusively on freelance writing (including books) and consulting engagements.

You may view my complete professional resume via my LinkedIn Profile.

THE FUN STUFF

I am a seasoned internet warrior, having maintained an active public online presence since 1993. The website you see here today is the fourth permutation of my online presence. The first served as a repository for over 750 reviews and feature articles I wrote in the ’90s for print clients, before most of them even had their own websites. The second version focused on creative writing projects, including a poem a day published in 2004; several articles went viral during this period, helping me to develop a very strong online brand. The third version of this website provided an archive of professional posts written for commercial and academic purposes.

This current version of my online home consolidates bits and pieces of all those earlier eras — professional and personal, entertainment and education, left brain and right brain, humorous and serious — dating back to 1995, and it also serves as my home for new writing of all flavors. There’s a lot of stuff here. Feel free to forage.

MEDIA

Head shot for press and media available here.

LEGAL NOTICE

All rights reserved, and all material on this website Copyright J. Eric Smith, 1995-2023, unless otherwise specifically noted or attributed. Unauthorized use or duplication of this material without express and written permission is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links are acceptable, provided that full and clear credit is given to J. Eric Smith with appropriate and specific direction via links to the original content.

12 thoughts on “About Me”

  1. I stumbled upon your photo essay Hidden in Suburbia from the year I was born today. I had to let you know how SEEN I felt. The Great Gorge of Goopy is basically my backyard and I was so fascinated and awed by it when I found it as a kiddo. I don’t go back there much anymore since the adjacent homeowners call the police if they see you, but that place and a lot of the others you photographed became really important to me as a kid. There’s no real nature here, whatever was remaining got developed away while Latham’s population halved over the 2010s. This place is more for SUVs than humans. When I was like 7 or 8 my HOA banned me and my brothers and neighbors from playing in the cul de sac because we would pick up the weird decorative rocks and move them. There is no “outside” for suburban kids to play in anymore. So I reclaimed these tiny parcels of littered woods as my own, I smoked and drew and sang and made art and put up swings until the nearby homeowners told me to get out. I didn’t get forest until I was like 14 and spending most of my time in Kingston/Woodstock. Nobody else appreciated these spaces, how weird and beautiful and ugly they are. They remind me that to live in the suburbs is to be stripped of your humanity at least a little. Because suburbia doesn’t exist for humans or for nature, it exists for capital. And it’s so beyond absurd and ugly but the little pieces of something real are so beautiful to me. I don’t think I’ve seen the Goop tower so if you remember how to get there, please let me know because I really wanna check if it’s still there. Thank you for reminding me that *Someone* has to care about the history and nature of the 2.5 mile radius I’m in. I’m leaving here forever in a few months so I will document these places a final time with my (lol) 2006 consumer digital camera. Godspeed brother,
    Maria Star

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    • What a great post, Maria!! Glad to hear from somebody who loved those spaces-between-the-spaces as much as I did!!

      I left Latham in 2011, so it’s a long time since I’ve been in those woods. Looking at Google maps aerial view, I can’t tell if the tower is still there or not . . . but since it was part of the system that drained the creek between Latham and ‘vliet, I have a hard time imagining it being removed, unless the “attractive nuisance” factor got too high for the folks who live near it, and they convinced the town to take it down.

      The easiest way to get to it was to get on the dirt road that connects (connected?) Western Avenue (off of Troy-Schenectady Road) and the newer Charterpoint Road (off of Boght Road). I would guess that the development of the latter neighborhood may make that the harder approach, since from aerial view it looks like the road’s terminus may now be in someone’s back yard.

      But if you look at those two roads on Google Maps with aerial view, you can see the dirt road. If going from Western to Charterpoint, you cross a large berm . . . the tower is (was?) below you to the left, in a big drainage basin.

      Good luck! If you do get down to see it, do send me pics!

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  2. I know it’s an old article but…

    Why wasn’t Alice In Chains included in the tournament for worst rock band ever? They definitely belong in the selection of bands omitted for the tournament due to greatness but I was surprised to see STP, Pearl Jam, and Nirvana in the rankings but no AiC.

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    • Bands had to have been RIAA certified at the time of having sold a certain number of albums to “qualify” for the tournament. They must not have met the mark in 2004 when I did it, or I would have included them.

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  3. Talk to me. We both were published today on Electoral-Vote.com. (I was, unfortunately and typically am, guilty of gallimaufery–I am D. M. from Burnsville, MN.)

    And I also spent a good deal of time in the service (as a civilian) of the US Navy, and particularly with the Supply Corps. And the topper: I also have lived in Iowa! In my own home (in Muscatine) for at least 1419 days, approximately 40 years ago. And I married an Iowa girl about 48 years ago.

    Yes, I easily recognized the Iowa twang in your writer’s voice, and the names of eight little towns in that noble state born by your characters. For anyone who unearths this trove in a future Star Trek episode: yes, it is true! Iowa is just like those four guys.

    Fortunately for me and my family, we escaped to Minnesota in time.

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    • Fun! My wife grew up in Minneapolis. We met and married while both in the Navy in Washington, DC. (She out-ranked me, which was not a bad way to start a successful 30+ year marriage on the right foot!) After ~20 years in Upstate New York (my work with Naval Reactors took us there), we had a work opportunity to move to Des Moines in 2011. Hey, couldn’t be THAT much different from Minnesota (which we love), just one state over, right?? Wrong!!!

      We were in DSM until 2015, then moved to Chicago until early 2019, then back to DSM for 18 more months, then retired out here to Arizona last fall. While I was in Iowa the first time, I was perversely fascinated by the weirdness and (often) WRONGNESS of the local culture, so being a creatively cranky sort, I created a website (anonymously, since I had to work with a lot of folks I semi-mocked in fictional form) called Des Mean. It got quite popular with some folks, and was quite annoying to others. There’s a litmus test there, I’m sure.

      When I shut that site down around 2016, I moved about half of it over to my own regular website, including the cocktails piece and its related Drinking in Iowa articles. I’m tickled that you caught the source of the names . . . every character I wrote had first and last names taken from tiny towns around the state. If you’re up for other chuckles about your former home (I’ve definitely written about Muscatine along the way!), the public pieces I kept online are all categorized on my website under this label: https://jericsmith.com/category/des-mean/.

      Thanks for checking in . . . pleased to meet you in virtual space!

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    • Hey Mike!!

      Great to hear from you . . . yes, it has been too long! All is good with me and mine: we have been living in Chicago since 2015, and I love it here. I get back to Albany a couple of times a year for business stuff, so nice to re-visit old haunts. Hope you’re doing well, too!! Making any music?

      E

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