Rebuilding a war zone into a nation
Ed Smith is using his business world experience to bolster Afghanistan.
By JOSE CARDENAS
Published January 2, 2006
ST. PETERSBURG - While working to reconstruct Afghanistan, Ed Smith doesn't get out often because of safety concerns.
But in early December he visited Herat in northwest Afghanistan for the grand openings of a school and a burn center for women.
"There were probably 250 young boys lined up. They were applauding when we came in, which made us feel really good," said Smith, 60, of St. Petersburg.
In his long career with international companies, Smith helped develop gas and oil pipelines in the former Soviet Union and central Asia. Now he using his knowledge of the energy business and management skills to help rebuild Afghanistan.
He is three months into a yearlong stint as chief of staff for the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, a post based in Kabul.
He supervises the group of 16 experts in various fields, such as education, health, water resources and air transportation.
The experts from the private and public sectors are recruited by the Department of State to advise the U.S. Embassy and the Afghanistan government on how to improve quality of life there.
"It's a chance for me to take what I've learned in my almost 40 years of working in business and ... provide value to another country," said Smith.
Smith and wife Marlene are Cleveland, Ohio natives. They have a home in Maine but made St. Petersburg their primary home in 2002.
To stay involved in the community, Smith volunteers with the St. Petersburg Police Department Road Patrol and SCORE, a group of experienced executives who mentor younger business people.
"Any way you can help the community I think is a good way to contribute and I'm doing it both ways, working with the Police Department and the business sector," he said.
In Afghanistan, Smith is the third chief of staff of the reconstruction group since the group was started.
His work entails using his expertise directly, advising officials on existing pipeline projects in Afghanistan, to coordinating meetings between his staff and American and Afghan officials, Smith said.
The reconstruction work is long term.
Drug trafficking is a major problem, he said. Only 4 percent of the people have electricity. Many live in one-room, mud brick homes, where they have no running water or sanitation systems and rely on firewood for heat.
Ongoing road construction aims to help speed crops to market; 70 percent of the people are involved in agriculture, Smith said. New power facilities aim to increase the number of people who have access to electricity to 40 percent in five years.
Efforts to build schools are important, Smith said, because the educational system was neglected under Soviet and Taliban rule.
"One of the challenges right now that we have in Afghanistan is there's a tremendous lack of human capacity," he said.
But Smith said that walking out of the military base near the embassy recently he saw an example of the strides being made in education: He ran into a 5- or 6-year-old boy selling trinkets who said his mother taught him English at home and he was learning French in school.
"We are seeing more and more people like that in Afghanistan that are not only able to pick up education quickly, but are able to overcome the difficulties of living in a country that has a tremendous shortage of basic things," Smith said.