He’s a Doctor (of philosophy), he’s an Ironman, & he’s your new APRO CEO – meet Charles Smitherman, a Georgia gentleman with a passion for RTO.
He holds a Doctorate of Philosophy in International Law and Legal Studies from the University of Oxford in England. He is a former Ironman competitor, and is considering running the back half (he already ran the first half) of a 112+-mile iconic trail race through the Alps – from Italy through Switzerland to France. And he reads more than a book a week, average.
Sounds like the prototypical RTO guy, right?
OK, maybe not. But Charles Smitherman is the new Chief Executive Officer of APRO, and it’s because he really likes RTO guys.
“I’ve been in a lot of associations for a lot of different industries – from law to tax to finance to insurance to automotive – and rent-to-own is a very special group of people,” Smitherman states. “The rental dealers, the vendors, the people who work for these companies. It’s just an awesome group.”
“I sort of defaulted to being a lawyer, I’ve always been a bit analytical, and if something wasn’t defined specifically, then I could see the gray areas. My parents would tell me I couldn’t play in the yard, and they’d find me across the street playing in my friend’s yard. I’m sure I was rather a challenge to my poor parents.“
Charles Smitherman, PhD, JD, MSt, CAE
Smitherman came from former APRO associate member PTS Financial Services, where he served as General Counsel, Vice President, and finally Chief Operating Officer for a total of more than eight years. While he worked with clients from various industries there, he found himself drawn to RTO.
“I looked forward to everything I got to do in relation to rent-to-own,” remembers Smitherman. “Going to an APRO seminar, TRIB Group get-together, State Association gathering, or dealer meeting – those were the events I circled and highlighted much more than anything else on my calendar. I tried to make myself indispensable in going to those events.”
So when the opportunity to lead APRO presented itself, Smitherman speedily tossed his proverbial hat into the RTO ring. A nationwide search – facilitated by an executive search firm – eventually led the five-member APRO Executive Search Committee to identify Smitherman as the right person for this critical position. He became the association’s sixth leader in its 43-year history last summer.
“I’m truly honored to be selected to help lead this industry,” Smitherman said at the time. “I understand the essential role APRO plays in protecting and promoting the rent-to-own industry – and I believe my background and experience will bring the association important insight and skills to support and advance not only its position as the voice of RTO, but also its duty to provide unique value to our members.”
“I am a lifelong learner, I try to learn something every time I have a conversation, or every time I listen to someone’s experience or perspective. The first two months at APRO, I was drinking from a firehose.
Charles Smitherman, PhD, JD, MSt, CAE
Charles W. Smitherman, J.D., Ph.D., is a hometown boy. He was born and grew up in Dalton, Georgia, a small city located in the northwest corner of the state, best known for its many floor-cover manufacturing companies. Smitherman was the eldest of three children, with a father who was a Certified Public Accountant and a mother who worked as a middle-school guidance counselor.
“My parents were extremely supportive,” recalls Smitherman. “It was Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – our physiological, safety, love and belonging needs were all taken care of. So the higher functions – esteem and self-actualization – were allowed to happen.”
In other words, Smitherman was an accomplished kid. He played multiple sports as a youth –including baseball, football, and golf – but discovered his fearless forte in pole vaulting, finishing his senior year one place off of the podium at the state championship. And he excelled academically, though his initial intention to become a doctor was thwarted by ninth-grade science, when animal dissections became part of the class.
“I sort of defaulted to being a lawyer,” Smitherman muses. “I’ve always been a bit analytical, and if something wasn’t defined specifically, then I could see the gray areas. My parents would tell me I couldn’t play in the yard, and they’d find me across the street playing in my friend’s yard. I’m sure I was rather a challenge to my poor parents.”
Smitherman ventured to central Georgia for his undergraduate degree – in political science and theology – at Mercer University in Macon; he graduated summa cum laude in three years. Then he sped off to law school at the University of Georgia in Athens, where he graduated cum laude by the age of 23. Smitherman had raced through school believing he was ready to practice law now.
“I worked a couple of summers with an Atlanta law firm,” recollects Smitherman. “It was a great place with enjoyable people and interesting work, but I just wasn’t ready to sit behind a desk all day, every day. I had been helping a professor with some research that had a lot of connections with Oxford University. So once I graduated, I decided to move to England, even though I had never actually been there. I had a trunk and a suitcase, I got on a plane and took off.”
“We’re searching for new ways to bring APRO front of mind, we want APRO to come to mind whenever you need information, help, support, or protection. We want to be an essential element in your business’ daily operations and overall success.
Charles Smitherman, PhD, JD, MSt, CAE
Over the next 3.5 years, Smitherman earned his Master of Legal Studies degree and his doctorate degree at Oxford, while also pole-vaulting for the school’s athletic team. His doctoral thesis, Transatlantic Merger Cases: United States – European Community Merger Review Co-operation, can still be found on Amazon.com; Smitherman is quick to joke about how elegant the 375-page tome looks upon a bookshelf, or how it can be more practically put to use as a solid doorstop.
But Smitherman’s biggest English accomplishment might have been per suading his British then-girlfriend, Ma rina, to accompany him back home to Dalton, Georgia.
“Marina was earning her doctorate in Clinical Medicine, doing research to help on the malaria vaccine,” Smitherman explains. “We completed our degrees at the same time, my visa was expiring, and to be honest, the weather over there had sealed my decision not to stay and, I believe, sold the idea of going to Geor gia for Marina. She was an active tennis player, and I think saying, ‘We get a cou ple of hundred days of sunshine a year here’ was the main thing that convinced her.”
Charles Smitherman consid ered his return to Dalton a kind of pitstop until he determined his next destina tion – likely a large law firm in New York City or Washington, D.C., he figured. In the meantime, a small local firm he had done a little work for invited him to join “for a few months or maybe a year, just to get my feet wet,” says Smitherman, “to get some court experience and some direct client work.” He stayed with the McCurry Law Firm for more than nine years.
“I got to work through the whole lifecycle of a business,” Smitherman recalls. “From setting up a company, to dealing with business-related issues, to handling disputes as they come up, to the sales and acquisitions or merger side as the business ran its course. It was invaluable experience, but the trial work was all-consuming, and too much as Marina and I were starting our family.”
Smitherman spent a few years as General Counsel and Executive Vice President for Opportunity Tax Service, a startup franchise company. Opportunity Tax provided him with not only further financial-services expertise, but also extensive franchising knowledge as he became a Certified Franchise Executive with the International Franchise Association.
In 2014, another opportunity popped up for Smitherman: an in-house position with PTS Financial Services, a national company based in not-too-far-off Calhoun, Georgia.
“I got almost day-one exposure to rent-to-own,” remembers Smitherman. “Immediately, I liked the people. And from my background as a corporate attorney and especially on the theoretical side, I appreciated the RTO transaction – how entrepreneurs saw an existing need and created a means of fulfilling that need, to help people by giving them an option they wouldn’t have otherwise. It’s a fascinating development.”
With his various positions at PTS – from General Counsel to Vice President to Chief Operating Officer – Smitherman honed his executive-level and management capabilities, so that by the time he was applying to APRO, his skillset included executive leadership, board liaison, staff management, legal compliance, public speaking, contract, franchise, and privacy law, antitrust, mergers and acquisitions, litigation, and legal research and writing.
“I felt my background and journey made me a great fit, and I really wanted the job because I truly care for this industry, our members, and the people we serve.
Charles Smitherman, PhD, JD, MSt, CAE
“Once I examined the job description, I realized there were many of the line items that I not only checked off, but also had significant substantive experience with,” Smitherman attests. “There were many alignments between what APRO was seeking and what I offered.”
APRO’s Executive Search Committee agreed, and Smitherman assumed his new post on June 1, 2023 – just as APRO staff was moving into the throes of hard-core preparation for the industry’s biggest event of the year, RTO World.
“The amount of work and detailed attention that goes into planning – and contingency planning – for RTO World was rather surprising for me, coming from the vendor side of things,” notes Smitherman. “Just the amount of items and sub-items and subsub-items that must be thought through is astonishing. I felt like the event itself [held in late August in San Antonio] was really great, and the feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive. My goal moving forward is to capitalize on what we’re doing well, and work to keep getting better every year.”
While observing and supporting his staff as they readied for RTO World, Smitherman was also traveling around the country to meet, greet, and listen to as many APRO members as possible.
“I am a lifelong learner,” Smitherman affirms. “I try to learn something every time I have a conversation, or every time I listen to someone’s experience or per spective. The first two months at APRO, I was drinking from a firehose. I wanted to be extremely proactive and present and visible, to interact with our members and let them know I’m on the job and I want to hear from them.”
Following his first RTO World, Smith erman experienced his first substantial meeting of the APRO Board of Directors, during a two-day work session held in Austin in late October. The Board is wrapping up its current strategic plan [2021-24] for the association within the next few months, and will be developing the next three-year plan [2024-27] later this fall.
“I see a number of things that will be significant for the next strategic plan,” states Smitherman. “APRO’s mission is to protect the rent-to-own industry and transaction, and I think we need to emphasize the education portion of that protection by promoting our Code of Ethics and industry best practices. APRO can be a space where foundational ed ucation and training can happen for the industry; we can build upon this type of offering and add value for our member ship while we continue to safeguard RTO.
“We’re searching for new ways to bring APRO front of mind,” he continues. “So we’re not just the anti-virus soft ware running in the background on your computer; we’re your go-to for all things rent-to-own. Whether you’re a member, a new employee, a manager, an owner, a vendor, a state association, what ever – we want APRO to come to mind whenever you need information, help, support, or protection. We want to be an essential element in your business’ daily operations and overall success.”
While Charles Smitherman was crafting his career, he also managed to wed sun-loving Marina 16 years ago. Today, Dr. Marina Smitherman is the Director of the Center for Academic Excellence and an Associate Professor of Biology at Dalton State College. Her research team was one that worked to develop the original COVID vaccine.
The couple has two sons – 13-yearold Liam and 10-year-old Owen – who, according to Charles, “live and breathe soccer.” So the family spends a lot of time at soccer practices and games, and the TV frequently features soccer matches, as well. With Marina’s parents and extended family over in England, the Smithermans try to “cross the pond” once a year at least; Charles says the boys quickly pick up British (West Midlands, to be precise) accents once they’re there, helping them blend in a little better than Charles, who retains his distinctive Dalton drawl.
The family loves to travel as often as possible, but – other than Oxford – Charles doesn’t have a favorite locale or even a preferred type of destination.
“I’ve been to 44 states and about 40 countries,” he notes. “I’m not finicky about whether it’s the mountains or the beach or a city. It’s the learning experience, the eye-opening experience of seeing new landscapes, trying new foods, being in different cultures. That’s what I love about travel, and what we’re trying to instill in our kids.”
Some travel coincides with Charles’ continued athleticism; he has done many Ironman competitions and triathlons, as well as a few ultramarathons (total distance > the traditional 26.2 miles), the aforementioned Alps race, and the Grand Canyon Rim2Rim2Rim Run – a grueling 46 miles long with two massive elevation changes of 5-6k feet. Charles is also a prolific reader, completing about 1.5 books a week – mostly nonfiction, philosophy, or leadership-focused, and mostly via audiobook on his daily runs.
Smitherman’s serious dedication to keeping his body – and mind – healthy is impressive, and bodes well for his apparent devotion to rent-to-own. Once something becomes a priority for him, Smitherman pursues it with a dogged sense of purpose.
“I felt my background and journey made me a great fit [for the CEO position], and I really wanted the job because I truly care for this industry, our members, and the people we serve,” he relates. “When the call came to offer me the job, I felt the full spectrum of emotions – much like what I feel at the starting line of a big race or endurance event: pure joy, excitement, gratitude, humility, the weight of the responsibility and trust, and eventually, focus on the task at hand and the path forward. I was absolutely elated to get the call, and I’m equally thrilled to be here today.”
Kristen Card has been a contributing writer for RTOHQ: The Magazine for 20 years.
