Business Roundtable: Brian Smith, Founder & CEO of EduSerc

Each month HCLS co-hosts an online roundtable focusing on a local business owned by a Person of Color in Howard County.  The owner shares the experiences and challenges they face as a local business owner. The discussion is moderated by Nat Alston, Chair and Founder of the Ujamaa Business Roundtable. Includes time for Q&A. The business roundtable normally meets on the 4th Tuesday of the month, but in June we are meeting on the last Tuesday of the month.

If you have questions or if you are business owner that would like to be featured at one of our monthly roundtable discussions, please email us: HCLS.BusinessRoundtable@hclibrary.org.

In partnership with Ujamaa Business Roundtable, a roundtable of African-American business owners from the counties of Howard, Montgomery, Prince George's, Baltimore and Baltimore City.

The featured guest of the June Business Roundtable is Brian Smith, Founder & CEO of EduSerc, which is celebrating its 25th Anniversary this year!

Brian K. Smith is an accomplished program manager, curriculum designer and chief architect of nationwide industry pipeline programs to several corporations and national nonprofit organizations and has been serving as an award-winning engineer, community leader and innovation consultant for over 29 years. Mr. Smith has successfully developed and managed programs that identify, recruit, train and transition talented youth into impactful industry professionals pursuing careers in several industries.

Mr. Smith’s background in technology, electrical engineering, software development, professional development training and industry-based community service program development has been key to his success in founding and leading EduSerc, a non-profit organization that dedicates itself to the development and advancement of youth, adults and the community across the nation.

Founded in 1996, EduSerc aims to develop industry pipelines in local communities to assist the career and professional development of youth from elementary, middle, high school, and higher education to move into the workforce or the world of entrepreneurship. The organization has designed two main programs called Young Innovators and Workforce Innovators that implements after-school programs, summer programs and complimentary training programs for youth and industry training for young adults. In addition, EduSerc recently formed a nationwide industry pipeline leadership development (IPLD) program which provides industry exposure, hands-on learning, mentoring, tutoring and other wrap around services to ensure industry pipelines retain their integrity throughout a participant's life cycle in its programs.

While leading EduSerc, he has served as a project manager and consultant to expand student opportunities and exposure to STEM learning in a number of organizations including the University at Buffalo at SUNY, Northrop Grumman, Maryland State Department of Education, and the Prince George’s County School System. He expanded his organization across the country in 2006 with an opportunity to consult, train and design STEM summer initiatives through a corporate citizenship initiative program from Northrop Grumman called WORTHY (WORthwhile To Help high school Youth). Now, he trains and runs programs across the country virtually and in-person in career, professional, technical and industry leadership for youth with his nonprofit.

Mr. Smith received his Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering in 1995. After graduation, he worked for Motorola on the International Space Station

Project. Later, he worked for Sybase where he received many awards for his solutions involving data and asset tracking for the military. He has also served as a Goodwill Ambassador for Education to the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Center for Peace in 2011- 2012, was a founding member of the Phoenix Alumni Chapter the National Society of Black Engineers (NSBE) and served as the Regional II Chairperson of NSBE during this last year in college.

He has received numerous awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New Light Leadership Coalition, he was named in the Top Minority Business Leader Under 40 by the MD/DC Minority Supplier Development Council Source Magazine in 2004 and was named to the Who’s Who List Among American Colleges and Universities to name a few.

To accompany his other list of achievements, he has also founded two IT and engineering companies which concentrate in designing industry solutions to help people start, grow and evolve their business in any industry through creative technology solutions, consulting services and supplier diversity.

Currently, he sits on a number of advisory boards including the Delta Foundation Inc., Congressman Steny Hoyer’s United States Service Academy Selection Board, Montgomery County Public Schools Business, Management and Finance Program Committee, Prince George’s County Public Schools Project Lead the Way (PLTW) Program Advisory Committee.

Please register with an email address to receive an immediate registration confirmation with a link to join the class/event. This email will also contain the dial-in information if you wish to participate by telephone.