Smith is a liaison between the ITM faculty and students of Georgia Tech and the business community, promoting employment and service opportunities for students and creating ways for business people, students and faculty to interact through case competitions, professional development, and club activities. In recognition of his teaching and other activities, in Spring 2015, Smith received the CETL Undergraduate Educator Award, which recognizes the outstanding contributions of non-tenure-track faculty. In Spring 2021, he received the Ernest Scheller Jr. Award, which recognizes a faculty or staff member who aspires to service excellence and who acts as an outstanding role model.
Before working in higher education, Smith was a systems analyst, designer, and programmer with expertise in production planning and inventory control in the textiles and apparel industries. He also wrote and maintained systems to support custom kitting/picking/packing, order entry, bill of materials, MRP, DRP, forecasting, sourcing, cash application, accounts receivable, and payroll.
Smith has several decades of experience as an advisor for Greek and other campus organizations. For many years he was also the chief technology officer of the International Association for the Fantastic in the Arts.
Smith received the Ph.D. in Management from Georgia Tech with a dissertation on the financial characteristics of firms that enter into large information systems outsourcing agreements. Prior to that, he had earned the M.S. in Management and the B.S. in Information and Computer Science from Georgia Tech. Smith's research has appeared in journals such as the Communications of the ACM, Journal of MIS, DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems, and the European Journal of Operational Research. He currently serves as a technical editor for the Journal of Information Systems Education.