Barry T. Smitherman

Smitherman was reared in Highlands in Harris County on the east side of Houston, Texas. He graduated from Ross S. Sterling High School in Baytown, Texas. He then received a Bachelor of Business Administration summa cum laude from Texas A&M University at College Station. Thereafter, he obtained his Juris Doctor from the University of Texas School of Law in Austin, while he worked at the state capitol for a state senator, Lindon Williams, a Democrat. Smitherman further received a Master of Public Administration degree from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. There he was awarded the first Joel Leff Fellowship in Political Economy.[4]

Smitherman began a career in banking, where he held leadership positions for First Boston, Lazard, and J.P. Morgan Securities, and eventually rose to become the head of Bank One's national municipal finance group[5] before he was fired in April 2002. Bank One's stated reason for the termination was that Smitherman had failed to get company approval before he co-authored an opinion column in the Houston Chronicle with two conservative Houston city council members, in which the authors discussed how the city could improve its credit rating.[6][7] In January 2003, Smitherman became a prosecutor in the Harris County District Attorney’s office,[8] and in May 2003 Perry named him to the board of the Texas Public Finance Authority.[9]

In April 2004, Governor Perry named Smitherman to the Texas Public Utility Commission (PUC).[8] He became the chairman of that body in November 2007.[10]

In 2004, Smitherman published the book If Jesus Were an Investment Banker (or Any Other Type of Modern Businessman): Leadership Principles from the Messiah and Personal Reflections of an Investment Banker Striving to Be a Christian.[11]

After seven years at the PUC, where Smitherman was seen as an advocate of deregulation, he left in July 2011 when Perry appointed him to the Railroad Commission to fill the position vacated by Republican Michael L. Williams, an unsuccessful candidate in 2012 for the United States House of Representatives.[12][13] Smitherman was elected as chairman of the commission on February 28, 2012 after Elizabeth Ames Jones departed to run for the state senate.[14]

In February 2013, Smitherman apologized for retweeting a list of 16 Republican US senators who voted to allow debate on gun control legislation accompanied by an image of a noose and the word "TREASON."[15] Later that year, Smitherman complained to his daughter's school teacher for using curricular material provided by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLPC) to study the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.[16] Smitherman characterized what he felt to be the "radical view of racism, hate, and intolerance" held by the SLPC, and he defended a number of organizations such as the Jewish Defense League, the Border Guardians, and Crusaders for Yahweh.[16] Smitherman noted, "Equally disturbing, the SPLC calls out groups like 'We the People', 'patriots', The 'Constitution Party,' and 'oath keepers' as groups which subscribe to unfounded conspiracy theories and are 'opposed to one world order'."[16]

Smitherman's term expired in January 2015. He was succeeded by Ryan Sitton of Friendswood, who serves with two other Republicans, David J. Porter of Lee County, who unseated former commissioner Victor G. Carrillo in the Republican primary in 2010 but is retiring effective January 2017, and Christi Craddick of Austin, who was elected in 2012 to fill the seat formerly held by Elizabeth Ames Jones but occupied in the preceding interim months by Buddy Garcia of Austin.

Smitherman and his wife, the former Marijane Frede, reside in Austin. They have four children, two of whom graduated from Texas A&M, one of whom is at Southern Methodist University and one is at Princeton University. The Smithermans are active members of the non-denominational Austin Ridge Church in Austin.

• About Chairman Smitherman at Railroad Commission of Texas website