Rick Smyre.
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 9-21-07
GREENSBORO, NC – Rick Smyre, president of the Center for Communities of the Future, will be the keynote speaker at a symposium 2-4 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in Elliott University Center Auditorium.
The Department of Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies presents this annual symposium, which is free and open to the public.
Smyre is an internationally recognized futurist specializing in how communities can successfully adapt to a rapidly changing economy and society. He has seen these challenges first hand as the CEO of a textile yarn spinning firm, chairman of a NC county school board and chairman of a county chamber of commerce.
A graduate of Davidson College and NC State, he is an architect of the new field of “molecular leadership” and “community transformation.” He 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 13 years.
His work emphasizes innovative concepts, methods, and techniques connected with the Communities of the Future idea in collaboration with a network of more than 1,000 individuals in 46 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.
A prolific speaker, he has provided more than 300 seminars, keynotes and retreats during the past decade. In 2000, his essay “Rewiring a Community’s Brain” was published as a chapter in the book Creating Learning Communities.
Three papers, “Beyond the Deck Chairs,” “It Is More Than Either/Or” and “The Third Aha” have been published by the World Future Society’s Future Research Quarterly in 1998, 2004 and 2006, respectively. He also wrote “Preparing 21st Century Rural Economies,” a chapter in the book “Knowledge-Based Economy,” published in India in 2006.
