J. Eric Smith, a longtime non-profit leader with a passion for helping Americans make better economic and financial decisions, has been elected chairman of the board of the American Institute for Economic Research.

Smith was elected during the board’s annual meeting on Oct. 17 at AIER’s historic campus in the Berkshires region of Massachusetts.

Smith is a native of South Carolina, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and the University of Albany’s Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy. Smith began his career in the military, as a naval officer. He worked at the Navy’s Nuclear Propulsion Program, and the U.S. Department of Energy.

He has worked at various nonprofits, including serving as executive director of the Salisbury House Foundation, which owns and operates a historic site in Des Moines, Iowa. Smith is currently president and CEO of the TREE Fund, the research and education wing of the United States’ tree care industry. It is based in the Chicago area, where he resides.

Smith originally joined AIER in 2007 as director of operations and development. He said he was impressed by the Institute’s history, how it takes the long view of economic history, and provides useful, actionable advice to its members. He later became a voting member of the board, and joined the 11-member board of trustees in 2013.

“Eric’s experience as a nonprofit leader and a former AIER executive will be invaluable to the Institute as we work to return AIER to greater prominence,” said Stephen J. Adams, president of AIER.

Smith said AIER is unique because it is non-partisan and non-political, and committed to providing education about economics to all individuals, helping them make wiser decisions and furthering their own interests in a way that helps build a stronger nation.

“I think AIER is really the most extraordinary non-profit I’ve had the opportunity to work with. Its history is amazing,” Smith said.  He said he would like to see an “effective balance where we are honoring, preserving and disseminating our historical findings and new research, and using all the new 21^st Century models in terms of information dissemination to make sure we’re reaching as wide an audience as we can, in as effective ways as we can.”

He is married to Marcia Smith, an attorney at a Chicago-area hospital. They have one daughter, Katelin, a human resource professional in Des Moines.