Fred Lee Smith Jr.

The venerable Fred Lee Smith, Jr. of Washington, DC and Cobb Island, Maryland, died at his home on November 23, 2024, after an acute illness. He was born December 26, 1940, in Mobile, Alabama and raised in rural Sixth Ward, near Slidell, Louisiana. The eldest of five children born to Fred Lee Smith and Bernice Wainwright Smith, Fred took an early interest in individual liberty and human rights.
In 1984, Fred founded the Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the first public policy groups addressing regulatory overreach. After serving as president through 2012, Fred executed a smooth succession and became the director of CEI's Center for Advancing Capitalism.
Before founding CEI, Fred was government relations director at the Council for a Competitive Economy, senior economist at the Association of American Railroads, and senior policy analyst at the Environmental Protection Agency for five years. Regulatory economics became as much a calling card as his enthusiasm for finding, assimilating, and sharing ideas.
Fred earned a B.S. degree in theoretical math and political science from Tulane University, where he earned the highest academic honor, the Arts and Sciences Medal, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. At Harvard University, he received a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for graduate study in theoretical mathematics. He also did graduate work in applied mathematics and economics at the University of Pennsylvania and SUNY at Buffalo. While in New York, he applied Baysian search techniques to anti-submarine warfare in his work at Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, which became a widely used technique.
Fred distinguished himself most with his insatiable curiosity, infectious joy, and love he carried with him. He was always striving to learn about more things, including the lives and hopes of people around him. Human dignity and the questions of how to help as many people as possible experience it was one of Fred's driving forces. In practice, this meant that Fred would talk to anyone about anything, practically anywhere and always respected their perspective. Fred was listening, but not passive. He engaged with other people's ideas because he respected them enough to take their ideas seriously. He expected others to examine their ideas critically, too, to defend their positions.
There were strong themes in the gospels of Fred Smith—the overlapping ideas of the moral dignity found in individual worth, the acknowledgement of powerful disruptions in life due to forces beyond one's control, and the importance of clear, economic thinking about the reality of the world around us. As a good friend quipped at his 65th birthday roast and many friends have repeated since, Fred's steady flow of ideas could hit you like a blast from a firehose. Fred spoke quickly, thought more quickly, and engaged in debate like an electric charge was forever running through his body noticeable from the ever-present twinkle in his eye when he found an audience.
Fred leaves behind his wife of 61 years, Frances Bivona Smith; his brothers, John Patrick Smith of Washington, DC and Aaron Wainwright Smith of Cheverly, MD; and his sister, May Helen Oliver of Lafayette, LA. His brother, Charles Smith, predeceased him. He also leaves behind nieces and nephews: Deborah Powell and Shannon Powell Doherty, of Lafayette, LA; Bridget Powell of Arlington, TX; Thomas L. Powell IV, of Lafayette, LA and Dallas, TX; Mark Powell of Decatur, AL; James V. Mullins of Coral Springs, FL; Elizabeth Mullins of Vero Beach, FL; Kimberly Glass of Cheverly, MD; Tracy Smith of U.S. Virgin Islands; Kori Rae Lilly of LA; Andy Andersen of New York, NY; Brandon Smith of Staunton, VA; and Chistopher Smith of Ames, Iowa.
The family thank and commend his caregivers who made his life so much more enjoyable: James Lancaster, Steven Blackstone, Lora Alvey Hayden, Angela Huff and Cheryl Goldsmith. Special thanks to Hospice of the Chesapeake, who cared for Fred during his last week at home.
Plans for a memorial service will be announced after the holidays.