Growing up on farm in rural Kentucky taught Wayne enduring lessons that he carried to the US Air Force Academy. There, he added new skills that supported him through Pilot School and into Weapons Test at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Those lessons were put into practical application when delivering the first “Smart Bomb” destroying the major power plant the day he became a prisoner of war. In the early months of his over 5 years internment, he thought about giving up while in isolation when an American voice called out to him through a drainpipe telling him to keep his spirits up…another POW who was there 18 months before he was shot down. That was his wake-up call. Ed Alverez, who was shot down and captured 3 ½ years before him, taught Wayne the “tap code” and gave him a connection to his new world. Those ensuing months brought him closer to his values, closer to God and honed the guiding principles he would later use when entering the corporate world.

Wayne O. Smith, born in Richmond KY in 1943, was a 1965 graduate of the US Air Force Academy and later flew 90 F-4 fighter combat missions over North Vietnam and Laos before being shot down in January 1968. He survived 5 years and 2 months as a POW and was repatriated in March 1973 as a Captain. Among Wayne’s honors for service in combat include Two Silver Stars, The Legion of Merit, Two Distinguished Flying Crosses, Two Bronze “V” Stars, Seven Air Medals, and The Purple Heart.

He began his business career with Air Products and Chemicals where he was appointed to such organizations as BOC Gases for the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and South America. In 1999 Smith retired as President and COO of MidAmerican Energy after the utility was acquired by Berkshire Hathaway.

Wayne is married to Old Naples Historian, Lois Bolin, Ph.D., a 40-year resident of Naples. He is involved with SWFL Veterans Alliance and serves as a docent at Naples Museum of Military History.