James B. Smith began work this week as director of Howard County's Community Action Council, replacing Dorothy L. Moore, who retired Friday after a 36-year career.
Smith, 36, of Owings Mills, a senior program director at the Baltimore Community Foundation who previously worked at the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, was hired from among 110 applicants for the $75,000-a-year Howard job.
"He was on a fast track. It's going to be great," said CAC board President Deborah Harris, who added that Smith "has all the skills we're going to need."
While working for the alliance, where his job was to help attract companies to the Baltimore region, Smith said he realized his interests lay more with helping people escape poverty.
"As I was traveling across the country, it became inherently clear to me that the jobs we were bringing were not for people who did not have college degrees. I became real sensitive to the need of people who come out of poverty," he said, which is why he left for a job at the Baltimore Community Foundation, a collection of more than 400 charitable funds worth about $177 million.
The Howard County job, he said, will merge "my administrative skills and my passion for helping people."
The Community Action Council is a quasi-governmental anti-poverty agency, administering programs ranging from Head Start for preschool children to a food bank, and aiding poor people behind on their rent and utility bills and who are facing homelessness.
Local officials seemed pleased to get Smith, who they said combines the best qualities of youthful energy, concern for the poor and the business skills now considered necessary for nonprofit groups.
The contrast between Smith's background and Moore's illustrates the trend.
Moore, a Howard County native who grew up in rural, segregated Howard County, began her career in 1969 as a community worker and learned on the job, eventually rising to be agency director without a formal higher education.
A Baltimore native, Smith said he graduated from Coppin State University, has a master's degree in public administration from the University of Baltimore and is pursuing a doctorate in the same field.
"These days, nonprofits, to be successful, have to have some business smarts," said Susan Rosenbaum, director of the county's Department of Citizen Services and a member of the search team.
