Doug Smith, Class of 1976

I grew up with my 3 brothers in the Village of Hamburg and later moved into the town. My folks, Jeanne and Andrew Smith, were active members of the community including: American Legion (they were both veterans of WWII), Catholic Daughters, and Hamburg Baseball. I graduated from Hamburg High School in 1976 and then attended Hilbert College receiving an A.S. Degree in Business Administration and played baseball for 2 years at Hilbert. I went on to the University of Buffalo School of Management where I received a B.S. in Business Administration.

After graduating the job market was challenging and I started as a beer truck driver for a local beer distributor, Lake Erie Distributors. I moved on to route sales at Try-it Distributing in the mid 1980’s. In 1987 I joined Labatt USA as a sales representative. Labatt USA became a global company owned by the likes of Interbrew and InBev. I held several positions in wholesaler management and National Accounts. One of my proudest moments was when I was part of the team that was able to move Labatt USA National Headquarters from Norwalk CT to Buffalo, NY. In 2015 working with FIFCO USA, new parent company of Labatt USA, I was named Vice President of Sales for North America, managing a sales organization of over 200 people, and was able to expand the business into all 50 states, the Caribbean and Canada. With all my business success my greatest achievement was being able to, along with my wife JoAnne (HHS class of 1977) raise our 3 children: Kevin, Sean, and Meghan in this community and have all 3 children graduate from HHS. Recently I have started along with friends and family a non-for-profit 501c3 group called Out of the Blue whose mission is to “enhance the lives of the adult disabled living throughout WNY”. To date we have given over $80,000 to this special community.