Smith was born in
Stockton, California, and grew up in the
San Joaquin Valley. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in engineering from the
United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He continued this tradition as an independent analyst. Annually Smith also updated his so-called wallcharts where he visually listed out vendors organized by tool category. In 2007 he received an
ACM SIGDA Distinguished Service award "in recognition for his contributions as Chief EDA Analyst at Gartner Dataquest for the past two decades". He died on July 3, 2015, in
Flagstaff, Arizona, after a short bout of pneumonia. He had daughters Tamara and Kim from his first wife, Diana Lee Smith. ==References==