Board

Mark Smith

Board Chair

Mark Smith serves as Executive Director of Blue Star Families, a national non-profit organization comprised of military families and veterans from all ranks and services, including the National Guard and reserves, that works to bridge the divide between our military and civilian communities and to offer programs that make military life more sustainable.

He began his career as an Army officer leading forward-deployed armor units in the U.S. and Germany after graduating from Washington & Lee University with a B.A. in political science. He earned his M.A. in American Foreign Policy and Economics from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and went on to serve as an assistant professor of International Relations and National Security Studies at the U.S. Military Academy in West Point, New York. He subsequently served as special assistant to former Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), General John R. Galvin. After leaving active duty service in 1994, he became a vice president and chief of staff to the CEO of Cedel Bank in Luxembourg. In 1997, he and his family returned to New York where he served as senior vice president and chief operations officer of Prudential Investment Management Services. In 2000, he left Prudential and was engaged by the Chairman & CEO of the Pacific Stock and Options Exchange in San Francisco to lead the project to launch the first fully electronic national stock exchange in the U.S., the ARCA Exchange. After September 11, 2001, Smith focused his professional skills again to public service and over the past decade has worked in a number of senior positions in national non-profit organizations including Outward Bound USA, the Philanthropy Roundtable, Operation Homefront, and the Veterans Innovation Center.