Kenneth Lee Smith

The first Earth Day in 1970 was an awakening for Ken Smith. It was that event that first sparked his interest in the fragile environment and eventually led him to make conservation his life’s work.

“And I couldn’t think of a greater calling than trying to protect and restore our world. And I feel that way 30 years later,” the Arkansas native said.

After a brief stint as a teacher, Smith established the Nature Conservancy program in Arkansas. Then he moved into government work, with the Department of Arkansas Heritage from 1981 to 1988 and as part of Gov. Bill Clinton’s staff from 1989-1993.

When his boss became president, Mr. Smith went to Washington. He spent 10 years with the Department of the Interior, ending up as assistant secretary over the U.S. National Park Service and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

The end of the Clinton administration in 1991 was also the end of Smith’s government service. But the Audubon Society knew of him, through his work at the Interior and also because his wife was a field director for Audubon in the District of Columbia, and asked him to help establish the society’s first presence in Arkansas.

With the assistance of Little Rock residents Robert Shults, Marion Burton, Lt. Gov. Winthrop Paul Rockefeller and others, and a $450,000 seed grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Charitable Trust, Smith established Audubon Arkansas in 2000. He leads a staff of six as they work toward goals of building educational nature centers on Granite Mountain in central Arkansas and another one in northwest Arkansas.

Smith, 52, says he is an admirer of the World War II generation. “I aspire to be a good man,” he said.