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 Peg
Smith, with twenty-six years experience
working with children, youth, and families,
is widely recognized for her entrepreneurial
work style and organizational capacity—and
her ability to move people, organizations,
and government agencies through significant
change.
Born and raised in Indiana, Smith has
a B.S. in early childhood and family studies
and a master's degree in management.
She began her career in 1974 as a Head
Start teacher. During the summers of 1976
and 1977, Smith created a career program
which was implemented in five counties
and reached over four hundred young people.
In 1977, Smith became the director of
the Head Start program for Child Adult Resource
Services. In this capacity, she was responsible
for children and family services for a five-county
area. Under her leadership, the program
services were expanded by 74 percent, and
she successfully established a home-based
infant stimulation program for high-risk
infants.
Smith served in this position until 1989
when she was asked to be the director of
the Children’s Division for Child
Adult Resource Services. The Children's
Division served a nine-county area providing
Head Start, developmental disability, and
public school preschool services. During
her tenure in this position, Smith encouraged
a wide array of agencies to effectively
collaborate and to develop multi-county
alliances—and was also able to increase
the nearly $500,000 budget by 30 percent
with funds raised from individuals and corporations.
In 1991, Smith joined the staff of the
Office of the Governor of Indiana as the
director of the Governor's Step Ahead
initiative. Smith managed a $43.3 million
budget, which included state and federal
dollars as well as private funding. The
Step Ahead initiative was supported by
eleven state government agencies and was
successfully implemented in all ninety-two
Indiana counties in a two-year period.
During that time, Smith also created the
first Bureau of Child Development in Indiana
state government.
In 1995, Smith became the executive director
of the Indiana Youth Institute (IYI) in
Indianapolis, Indiana. IYI is an intermediary
agency serving the youth of Indiana by supporting
adults statewide who care about youth—both
youth-serving professionals and policymakers—with
research, training, and advocacy.
In 1998, Smith became the chief executive
officer of the American Camp Association® (ACA)
in Martinsville, Indiana. The American
Camp Association is a national organization
representing over 7,000 individual members
and over 2,400 ACA-Accredited® camps.
ACA is a community of camp professionals
who, for nearly one hundred years, have
joined together to share knowledge and
experience and to promote positive human
development by enriching the lives of children,
youth, and adults through the camp experience.
Smith presents at both state and national
conferences for varied professional associations
and youth-serving groups.
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