Don Smith has been an achiever from an early age. He earned the rank of Eagle Scout at 13 in Rhode Island. He attended Harvard in the sixties, earned a PhD in economics from Brown in 1970 and taught students at Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, Texas, the value of economics in improving their environment and promoting social justice. He was an economist in the U.S. Senate in the late seventies, an entrepreneur in Oklahoma in the eighties and has been a rancher in that state since 1990. He also developed a new bloodline of cattle to market beef as a health food and, working with his two sons, found a strain of beneficial algae that can be grown in covered ponds using carbon dioxide from the exhaust of the power plant he owns.

Hometown: Aspen, Colorado, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Age: 63
Profession: Serial entrepreneur
First boat: 14-foot O’Day Javelin sloop
Current yacht: 95-foot Nelson Marek fast-cruising sloop, Patient Falcon
Most memorable boating moment: At the Superyacht Cup Antigua this past December, nosing out Tenacious to beat her at the finish line, under extremely difficult sailing conditions.
Greatest professional achievement: I built a combined-cycle gas turbine, cogeneration power plant in Oklahoma City. It produces power cheaply and environmentally cleaner, compared to the high-cost electric utility.
If you had another pass at a career, what would you be? An architect or a composer of symphonies with melodies and harmonies created to bring the listener closer to God
Closest boating buddy: Mike Young, my best friend, who sails, scuba dives, hunts ducks and dances all night at clubs
Weekday wake-up time: In Aspen, I awake at 7 a.m.
Hobbies: Skiing, wilderness horseback riding, scuba diving, duck hunting, fly-fishing
Last book read: "Constantine’s Sword"
Favorite dance music: Techno-rock (The Love Generation)
Proudest moment: When coaching my son Brian, who was broad jumping in high school, I flew from China to Dallas to meet him on the field. I asked him to forget about everything in the world and jump higher than he had ever jumped. He jumped a full foot farther than ever before. I asked him to repeat it, running even faster down the runway and jumping even higher. He jumped six inches farther still…and won.
First job: Scrubbing floors in neighbors’ kitchens
Best job: Developing companies to provide cleaner and less expensive electric power, to promote economic security in communities and a cleaner environment
Favorite movie: "The Mission"
Preferred wheels: Ford F250, four-door, King Ranch, black pick-up truck. We haul skis and kids to the Aspen slopes, and we tow our friends and neighbors out of ditches in whiteouts. We also haul horses and wilderness camping equipment to the high mountains.
Preferred wings: The helicopter blades of jet helicopters near Juneau, Alaska, that deposit me on glaciers, allowing me to rappel down the fronts of ice walls
Favorite watch: Hublot Big Bang [chronograph]
Favorite clothing designer: Blanc Bleu, linen apparel for yachting and late-afternoon beach parties
Favorite cruising grounds: Remote fjords in Alaska, watching the calving of icebergs as they splinter from the fronts of 4,000-foot-high glaciers
Favorite sport: Sailboat racing
Favorite position on the boat: Helmsman on my maxi ocean racer Falcon 2000
Favorite port: Gustavia, St. Barth’s
Latest impulse purchase: A 530-hp Porsche Cayenne to replace my Maserati in Aspen. I needed to go 110 miles per hour in a 35-mph speed limit zone near my ranch.
Ideal day: With my sons negotiating business deals to make the world a better place