Biography

Randy Smith has spent the majority of his adult life as an entrepreneur and today is the proprietor of Destinations Booksellers, the first full-service, independent general new books bookstore in New Albany since 1947.

He has made the store at 604 E. Spring Street a center for community. Numerous community organizations have used its facilities to launch themselves toward success. Randy and the store have received a number of local and state awards for contributions to the community.

Born in Daytona Beach, Fla., Randy was raised in East Tennessee, where he first realized a calling to public service of some sort. He attended the University of Tennessee on scholarship, paying his own way through college with merit grants and working income. He graduated with honors with a B.S. in Public Administration. Subsequently, he studied over 3 years at the U.T. College of Law. He is not a lawyer, however.

His first professional employment was as a journalist, a career to which he returned later in life. During the course of his career he gained experience in the lodging industry and became a sought-after computer trainer in the early days of the technological revolution. Subsequently, he became a small business consultant and a project manager. In the course of his work he has traveled to each of the 48 contiguous states in the U.S.

He founded a high-tech manufacturing company in his 30s, consulted nationally and led project teams in his early 40s, and found himself back in journalism just in time to cover the 2000 presidential election in Florida. His online newspaper was the first to break the news of the loss of the Shuttle Columbia in 2003 and the death of Dale Earnhardt in 2001. The site earned recognition as the best online news site in the state of Florida in Randy’s last year there.

In 2004, he moved to New Albany, married lifelong resident Ann Baumgartle, who manages a classified government project for Hewlett-Packard, and opened his business in the heart of downtown.

He has been engaged in politics and public affairs in New Albany. This is his first run for public office.

Randy is 55.