Biography

RICK SMYRE
President, Center, Communities of the Future

704 864-9196
704/853-1707(fax)
rlsmyre@aol.com

Rick Smyre is an internationally recognized futurist specializing in the area of building "capacities for transformation" in local communities. A graduate of Davidson College and NC State University, he is President of the Center for Communities of the Future and is an architect of the new field of "molecular leadership" and "community transformation." Mr. Smyre is the past Chairman of the Board of the American Association of Retirement Communities and has been on the staff of the National Economic Development Institute for twelve years.

Married for 42 years to Brownie Allen, Mr. Smyre has three children, Cinda (41), Deric (38), and Beth (36). In the '70s he was the CEO of a textile yarn spinning firm. As a result of his experience at the state and local level, to include chairman of a NC county school board and chairman of a county chamber of commerce, he understands issues local communities face when preparing for a different kind of economy and society.

Mr. Smyre work emphasizes innovative concepts, methods, and techniques connected with the Communities of the Future idea in collaboration with a network of over 1000 individuals in forty-six states and six countries. The focus of this work is to develop “capacities for transformation” in the thinking and activities of citizen leaders in local communities, especially in rural areas. In 2000, his essay, Rewiring a Community’s Brain, was published as a chapter in the book Creating Learning Communities. His articles have been published on various web sites, and two papers, Beyond the Deck Chairs, It Is More Than Either/Or, and The Third Aha by the World Future Society’s Future Research Quarterly in 1998, 2004 and 2006. Preparing 21st Century Rural Economies is a chapter in the book, Knowledge Economy, published in India in 2005.

Mr. Smyre focuses his work in several ways. He speaks internationally and has provided over 300 seminars, keynotes and retreats over the last decade to introduce these "COTF System of Community Transformation" and "Second Enlightenment" ideas. Mr. Smyre has spoken at the last twelve World Future Society Conferences, Scottish Enterprise and Strathclyde University’s Tallking Thinking Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, the National Computer Ethics Conference at the Brookings Institute in DC, and a national economic development conference in Toronto. Among the keynotes he has provided are the National Millennium Communities Conference in Houston for the US Institute of Justice; the national Council for Resource Development in Washington, DC; the Southeastern Civil Rights Conference in Atlanta; the Pennsylvania Rural Center State Conference; the North Carolina Community College System; the TVA Quality Communities Conference; the Illinois State Association of Community College Administrators; the Mid West Economic Development Commission Conference in Minnesota; the Institute of the Future Conference in Houston, TX; the Tech Expo Conference in Arcata, CA; Scotland Tomorrow; State of Maine’s Economic Development Symposium, Region III of the National Association of University Student Personnel Administrators.

Of special interest to Mr. Smyre is his work to help local communities (Norfolk, NE; Urbana, OH, Potter County, PA; McAllen, TX) prepare for transformational change: 1) as a strategic networker to develop new ideas such as Transformation Learning and Futures Institutes, and 2) as a "master capacity builder” to work with leaders in local
communities to develop 21st century capacities to include Molecular Leadership skills.