September 2012
| Business World Magazine | 111
and the rest of the management team, Smith
helped improve Resolution’s profitability
preceding its merger with Hexion Special-
ty Chemicals (now Momentive Specialty
Chemicals), another Apollo-owned compa-
ny.
At that point, Apollo understood Smith
wanted to be a CEO, so he was appointed
to Covalence Specialty Materials, another
Apollo acquisition and the number one
producer domestically of trash bags. That
company merged with Berry Plastics, and
after overseeing the transition, Smith shifted
once again into the CEO role of Noranda in
March, 2008.
“
I’ve been in and around commodities
since 1977, and you can make the case that
I’ve been hanging around commodities since
I’ve been 12 years,” he says. “I grew up in a
company town. My dad had a wonderful
career with Dow, and because of that high
quality manufacturing job my family really
lived the American dream.”
“
Commodities, chemicals plastics – this
was dinner table conversation,” Smith ex-
plains.
Dow Chemical Company is from where
Smith modelled his strategy for running
