Dennis Smillie was born and raised in Michigan and graduated from Edsel Ford High School. He attended Northern Michigan University, where he earned a bachelor of science degree in education with a major in Physical Education and a minor in History. He worked for the YMCA, was in the hotel business, and has been in the multifamily housing industry for 40+ years as a senior management company executive, startup technology executive and, for the last 23 years, a consultant to the apartment industry. He lived in Pennsylvania for several years before choosing to move to Athens in 2015. Dennis is a guitarist who plays in two local bands, Janet and the Blue Dogs, and the Roadside Attractions. He sits on the board of a couple of for-profit businesses, is the Citizen Representative for the Unified Government’s Pension Board and volunteers with the Clarke County Mentor Program. Dennis lives on the West Side of Athens with his wife, Janet, and one of the world’s only cats that plays fetch, Luna aka Luna the Tuna aka Toonie. He has two grown sons.
What do you love most about your career?
I think it’s watching companies grow from an idea to something that is viable and that ultimately has success in the marketplace. Core to that is the opportunity to watch the people I coach also grow, both as salespeople and as individuals. The skills I coach are not necessarily pure sales skills, they are also life skills. I love to hear feedback from my clients like “I went home last night and I asked these four questions and it completely changed the dialogue.” So, watching them grow and then having people reach out years later and say I still use what you taught me is very rewarding.
When you are not working, what do you love to do around Athens?
I used to love to go to restaurants and I’m trying to figure that out again in this phase of the pandemic. We have a window here before it gets really hot, so we are trying to do some outdoor restaurants. I love to go see music. I love to play music, fish, golf, thrift and throw the ball for my cat, not necessarily in that order.
If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?
Two places. I think I would go back to Paris. My wife and I went there for two weeks and it was wonderful. We had a little hotel room overlooking just a gorgeous panoramic view of the city. We loved having picnics in the park and buying supplies for that experience at the farmers market. There’s nothing like having a picnic in the grass in front of the Eiffel Tower and eating chicken off the bone with bread, cheese and wine. I would go back there, and I think I would go to Rome. As to other places, we talked about doing this before the pandemic and may still, but I would love to go to a mediterranean island, say Sicily or Majorca, and rent a place near or on the beach for a year and just absorb myself in the local food, shop for groceries every day, swim in the ocean, meet local people, and force myself to learn the language to survive. It would be like a basecamp experience, but a really cool base camp. We had thought about doing it for three months, but now I am getting to the point where if we could go for a year, why not? You can get so caught up in the everyday moments of what you are doing, and sometimes you have to take a step back and think about what is really important, and ask yourself if you are focused on the important things in life.
If you could see any band anywhere, who would you see and where?
Oh, that is an easy one. It would be the Rolling Stones at Hendershots. Close up and personal. I did see the Rolling Stones once in a small venue. I was in the hotel business as an assistant manager working the nightshift from 11 to 7 a.m. in downtown Detroit. On the radio came an announcement that the Stones were doing an unscheduled surprise concert at the Masonic Temple in Detroit, which only held two thousand people, and had great acoustics. Tickets were going on sale at 7:30 that morning, two minutes away from where I got off shift. I had second row seats, and it was amazing. Yeah, it would be the Stones at Hendershots. Absolutely.
If you could give any advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Talk less, listen more, would be one. The second would be that knowing the right questions to ask is more powerful than thinking you have all the right answers. Those are lessons I learned the hard way.
If you could put any message on a billboard, what would you put?
Failure Equals Progress. The kids that I coach ask “‘How do you know that”? And, I say even vinegar can turn into wine with enough time. You typically learn more from failure than you do success, and I got a chance to do a lot of “learning” in my younger days!
Do you have a favorite book?
Yes, A Prayer for Owen Meany. To me, it says there are no accidents. Even as random as things may seem, at the end of the day you are always where you are supposed to be whether you know it or not.
Do you have a favorite movie?
Oh yeah, The Big Lebowski. Every one of those scenes is its own movie, and the Coens sequenced all of these short encapsulations in perfect harmony. I knew so many Jeffrey Lebowskis. I could have been Jeffrey Lebowski but for Owen Meany.
If you could have lunch with anybody, dead or alive, who would it be and where?
I think the where is not important, it is the who: Leonardo Davinci; because, you know, what can’t he talk about? He is the Renaissance man. He might have invented the electric guitar for all I know! He is just an amazing guy. He would definitely be first on my list.
What is something interesting about you that most people might not know?
Nobody knows this, well very few people do, but at the time (I had just turned twelve) I was the youngest Eagle Scout in America. I am sure that record no longer stands, but at the time it was kind of cool to have that mantle.
What three words or phrases come to mind, when you think of the word “home”?
Janet, Toonie and peace.
