Meet Jevon
A legacy rooted in service
Jevon's future was set toward public service well before his life began. His legacy is deeply rooted in a passion for serving people and doing the most good through community service. Growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina, he quickly noticed that his teachers, mentors, and community leaders would immediately recognize and associate his last name with numerous aunts, uncles, and cousins who would come before him.
His grandmother Arlene Smith would blaze a trail of public service as one of the 1st African American transit workers for the City of Fayetteville. Through her work for FAST (Fayetteville Area System of Transit), she would be remembered by many as His grandfather, Timothy Smith Sr., who served in the US Army as a Staff Sergeant during World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
His mother, Robin Smith, dedicated over 30 years to serving in K-12 public education, curriculum development, and as a youth leader for Parks Chapel Free Will Baptist Church and Kingdom Impact Global Ministries.
It's this start that's foundational to his continued dedication to serve.
STEM, Best Buy, and Destiny
In his youth, Jevon was always insanely curious about science and technology. His fascination would lead to a childhood of reading books on subjects like electromagnetism and coding computer applications. It was a easy decision for him to enroll in Fayetteville State University's Computer Science degree program in the Fall of 2002 after graduating from E.E Smith Senior High School.
After the conclusion of his Freshman year at Fayetteville State University, Smith would seek part time employment as a means to save up money for tuition. This would take him down unique path of working on some of the most complex problems at electronics retail giant, Best Buy. Working in Best Buy's Geek Squad Division during the start-up phase in 2003 afforded him access to developing some of the 1st draft technical initiatives at the Fortune 500 retailer.
Jevon quickly rose through the ranks serving on multiple regional and corporate functional implementation teams, leading ERP system deployments and becoming a technical subject matter expert throughout the North Carolina and South Carolina markets. Frequent visits to the company's corporate campus in Richfield, Minnesota would afford him a strong network of mentors and experience leading the service's division's expansion into international markets like China, Turkey and Canada,
After winning five company achiever awards, Smith was awarded the Brad Anderson CEO Legacy Stock Award in 2010, the highest honor any Best Buy employee could receive at the time. It was a significant career achievement and a signal to Smith that he was on the right track!
NC State University
Agriculture, Data Science, and Research
Jevon joined NC State University in 2015 where he has served in various capacities of information technology leadership. Currently, he leads the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences' Research Computing Division where he is responsible for AI, technical strategy, operations, cybersecurity, engineering and design of high performance computing systems.
North Carolina and Raleigh by extension have a rich history grounded in agricultural development. As North Carolina's #1 economic driver with over $110 billion in annual receipts, the impact of Jevon's work has been featured in the Washington Post, PBS, WUNC, NC Cooperative Extension and more. His efforts have fostered nationally recognized partnerships with SAS, USDA, AWS, NVIDIA, Microsoft, Lenovo, Dell, VAST Data, Cambridge Computing and others.
His community-centric approach towards future proofing North Carolina's food value chain illustrates his continuous and purpose-driven quest towards improving the quality of life for citizens across North Carolina.
Jevon's approach to think without boundaries applied with his unrelenting desire to listen, understand, empathize, and problem-solve are just what Raleigh needs at such a pivotal moment in time.
Highlights
Family. Faith. Fellowship.
