Matthew Smith Email & Phone Number

Raised in the Rocky Mountain West, Matt Smith is committed to rural community development through planning, design, and construction processes that support and improve small communities. To further this work, he partnered with other rural practitioners to launch Building Common Ground, an infrastructure accelerator that aims to provide long-term support to rural, remote, and Indigenous communities and their leaders. Matt is currently a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design for the 2024-2025 academic term where his coursework and research will focus on real estate investing, social entrepreneurship, and economic development policy. Prior to his current work, Matt was Managing Director at MASS Design Group where he oversaw Global Operations from 2015 to 2023, supporting MASS’s ten-fold growth in staff size and revenue while ensuring the organization remained mission-focused. During this time, MASS was recognized as the 2022 AIA Firm of the Year, a Wall Street Journal “Innovator of the Year”, and one of Fast Company Magazine's Most Innovative Companies. In 2019, Matt co-led the opening of MASS’s rural and Native-focused Santa Fe Studio while helping to secure over $1.2M to launch its Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab. Matt was also a Visiting Scholar at his alma mater, Montana State University, where he taught and researched hybrid organizations as alternative models of design practice. Based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Matt is active in his community and serves on the boards of Creative Santa Fe and Atalaya Search & Rescue, where he is also an on-call first responder working in Northern New Mexico’s backcountry. He holds a Masters in Development Practice from Columbia University and a Bachelors in Business Management and Philosophy from Montana State University.

Listed skills include Non Profit Program Development, Rural Economic Development Programs, Policy Analysis, Grant Writing, and 13 others.