Meet David Smith | public servant, current candidate for County Judge in Collin County

We had the good fortune of connecting with David Smith and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi David, can you tell us more about your background and the role it’s played in shaping who you are today?
A diverse background and upbringing with strong values and a focus on local service led to my current public service career and a focus on social and economic justice.

I did much of my growing up in the small Southeast Texas city of Groves, where my father served as Mayor and my mother served as editor of the local newspaper. During high school and college years, my perspectives were broadened through living in England and Wales. This was particularly so during my high school senior year, when I lived in a London area YMCA with students from the Asian and African countries of the British Commonwealth.

My university experience, at Vanderbilt, was also broadening, as part of the school’s mission, through coursework and guest speakers, was exposing students to a variety of perspectives and ideas. In addition to earning an engineering degree which was a gateway to a successful corporate career, I took political science courses which further nurtured the interest in local government inspired by my parents earlier in my childhood.

Subsequent service in the US Air Force with a variety of people from the entire country was a further broadening experience.

Later, while a corporate employee and a homeowner, I also followed the lead of my parents in becoming active in homeowner associations. This continued to reinforce acting locally for the direct benefit of community.

My corporate career included promotions into middle management and years of experience in refining people skills and in collaborating with others to get things done.

All this well prepared me for higher level public service, including three terms on the Plano City Council, lobbying at the state capitol, election administrator service and a current candidacy for the County Judge position for Collin County.

While dealing with immediate governance measures, I also pursue long term social and economic justice as a result of my background and upbringing. This included growing up in the then segregated South, with parents pointing out the separation and socioeconomic disparities were not right. This later included talking with students who began their lives as subjects in colonies. And, thankfully, this also included time in high school, university and armed service who all were then early in becoming integrated and striving to provide equal opportunity for all. In all aspects of my life since then, including membership and leadership in my faith group (currently the United Methodist Church), I have worked towards social and economic justice. Our society has made a lot of progress in the last few decades, but we have much more progress ahead.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Collaboration was the most valuable skill I developed in my career. I early developed good analytical skills, including the ability to identify solutions and pathways to the solutions. First in the corporate world I learned that implementing those solutions, particularly the large meaningful solutions, required cooperation from many; and generally buy-in needed to precede cooperation. A key part of buy-in for most is participation in developing the solution. Better solutions were often identified in the process. Sometimes the results included imperfect solutions in my view, but those were achievable solutions because of the buy-in from a team responsible for implementation.

Learning who to collaborate with was a valuable related skill. In many cases, I got things done by working with key individuals behind the scenes. Within the corporations I worked for, not everything had to be a visible divisional initiative with lots of higher level approvals.

This directly transferred to my service as an elected government official. There was certainly a lot accomplished through collaborating with my elected city council colleagues on what we did as a body. However, a lot was also accomplished through working with key staff members or others behind the scenes without a need for exposure to potential conflict. This was particularly valuable for me as a member of the community’s minority political party, when something brought up by me at the council table could be perceived as an ideological challenge. I learned that most officials are dedicated to good public service and will work with anyone to achieve good results if they can do so without losing face with those who elected them. I also served on local, state and national committees with elected officials from different jurisdictions where collaboration was the only tool available.

I now aspire to service as the chief executive for county government. Here collaboration is necessary not only with officials from cities and other jurisdictions. Collaboration is also needed within county government, because the leaders of most departments, such as the sheriff, the judges, the district clerk, the county clerk, the tax assessor-collector and others are all separately elected. I will also be elected as the nominee of the Other Political Party from the perspective of the other county elected officials. Thus it will be very important I well collaborate in the public forums as well as behind the scenes.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
A first day in my city might be spent in Downtown Plano and the neighboring Haggard Park. (This is a place of pride for me as I promoted its revitalization when a city council member.) While there we may visit some restaurants and shops, the Art Centre, the Courtyard Theater, the DART station (which was going to be just a special events platform before city council intervention) and an adjacent antique rail car from decades ago when the Texas Electric Railway supplied public transit on the same route now used by DART through Plano.

A next day might be spent in two major adjacent parks in East Plano, namely the Bob Woodruff and Oak Point parks. We might spend time on the trails that wind through the park and by its lakes. With luck, a friend might loan a horse for a ride.

If the interests of my friend align more with urban living, subsequent days might be spent at the Shops at Legacy or the nearby Legacy West. (I also have personal pride in this part of the city, as I was engaged with the master planning for this area as a manager at EDS.) There we may visit numerous other restaurants and shops and just hang out in an interesting venue, such as Legacy Hall.

If my friend is more into parks and trails, we could spend the rest of the week visiting them – and not get to all of them before the week is over. I would probably start with the Chisolm Trail (which is well known to me as it passes close to my first Plano home).

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My late parents, David M. Smith and Patricia Carnahan Smith

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