Reginald Smith

Reginald “Reggie” Smith is the Founder and Chair of the Board of Building Promise USA. Raised in the Third Ward of Houston, Texas, he cycled through alternative schools and “at-risk youth” programs only to be funneled into the juvenile justice system at the age of sixteen and the adult system at seventeen. This began a more than twenty-year odyssey of substance use and criminal justice involvement, treatment programs, and prison cells. Finding himself in federal prison he remembered what his grandmother used to tell him as a boy, “If it is to be, it begins with me.” It was then that he realized that if he didn’t make an extraordinary effort to change, nothing was going to change in his life!

Reggie has gone on to earn a bachelor’s and master’s degree in social work from the Steve Hicks School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Austin. He also holds an MBA from Huston-Tillotson University. He was the Communities for Recovery, Hogg Peer Policy Fellow from 2016 – 2018 and a Policy Analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition for 2018 – 2019, and a Senior Advisor for the Peer Service Unit of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission. He is currently the Policy & Community Liaison for the Earl Carl Institute at Texas Southern University in Houston. Reggie’s mission is to help build a community-based infrastructure of reentry support services to assist individuals with criminal justice involvement and behavioral health challenges to achieve their goals and reach their full potential.