NEW ORLEANS – Today’s ACG Louisiana’s July Luncheon will feature guest speaker Eric Smith, a Professor of Practice in Finance at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University and the Associate Director of the Tulane Energy Institute.
The luncheon will take place at the Roosevelt Hotel’s Blue Room. Networking begins at 11:30 a.m. and the luncheon will start at 12:00 p.m.
Smith joined Tulane in 2003. He works with various professors on interdisciplinary projects involving energy issues. He also works with Houston and New Orleans engineering firms and with various regional teams focused on economic development and teaches both undergraduate and graduate energy courses.
Smith is a 1965 Chemical Engineering graduate of the Georgia Institute of Technology and earned an MBA, in 1967, from the A. B. Freeman School at Tulane University. In addition to eleven years of full time academic/advisory experience, he has 36 years of operational experience, first, in the petrochemical industry, and since 1984, in the international offshore drilling and construction sectors.
Outside of Tulane, Smith has worked with Global Industries, The CRP Group, and Torch Inc. where, as EVP he was instrumental in arranging an $80 mm. Initial Public Offering. Prior to joining Torch, he assisted Italian construction and drilling contractor Saipem in a major public offering that financed their deep water initiative while also reducing Government ownership. He also served as President and Chairman of Saipem, Inc., their U.S. subsidiary. Prior to that effort, Smith worked for J. Ray McDermott a major US offshore contractor.
Before getting into the upstream oil and gas services business, Smith was involved in downstream petrochemicals, first with Allied Chemical, now a unit of Honeywell, and subsequently with the Ethyl Corporation, a manufacturer of additives used in the refining of crude oil. On occasion, he has also supported reverse trade missions involving Pakistan, South Africa and Ghana, all sponsored by US government agencies.
Smith has also served as a consultant to Louisiana’s Department of Economic Development as well as to Greater New Orleans, Inc. the regional economic development group. In addition, he is the Energy committee co-chairman of the World Trade Center of New Orleans and acts as Tulane’s media spokesman for energy issues.
