Profile

Eric Smith is a Professor of Practice at the A.B. Freeman School of Business at Tulane University. He also serves as the Associate Director of the Tulane Energy Institute. He 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 fifteen years of full time academic/advisory experience, he has over thirty years of operational experience, first, in the downstream petrochemical industry and then, from 1984 until 2004, in the upstream, offshore, drilling and construction sectors. During that time, he participated in arranging three IPOs, the largest being a combined primary-secondary offering for Saipem, SpA. He also was the head of Saipem's US subsidiary during the installation of Hoover-Diana, Exxon's first major deep water structure in the Gulf of Mexico. He served as a consultant to Louisiana's Department of Economic Development as well as to Greater New Orleans, Inc. a regional economic development group. In addition, he is the Energy Committee Chairman of the World Trade Center of New Orleans. Most recently, he also served as a consultant to the US embassy in Guyana, at the behest of the US Department of State.