Who is our CEO?
Who is our CEO?
Jerry Thomas Smith is the Founder, Volunteer Chairman, and CEO of California SPCA, Inc. He brings 20+ years of leadership experience across global technology, retail channel operations, and financial services, plus a 30-year career as a professional photographer.
He is currently a Senior Advisor at Dell Technologies, leading complex services programs across major retail and distribution partners in the U.S. and Canada, including Best Buy, Costco, and Walmart. His scope includes contract execution, regulatory requirements, partner management, repair operations and parts, quality control, advanced resolution, and performance reporting, in close partnership with Legal, Finance, Accounting, Merchandising, Marketing, and Operations.
Previously, he served as a CPFR Manager and Supply Chain & Logistics Planner at Dell Technologies, managing planning, forecasting, procurement, and delivery for the Amazon account and additional retail partners, coordinating end-to-end flow from manufacturing partners to retail channels. He also held roles as a Retail Account Manager at Dell, managing multiple North American consumer retail accounts and building account strategies based on market dynamics, pricing, competition, and growth potential.
Earlier in his career, he held sales leadership roles at AIG and GEICO, where he recruited, trained, coached, and managed high-performing teams, implemented performance development plans, and led formal review and appraisal processes.
He served in the U.S. Navy as an Air Traffic Control Supervisor with a Secret clearance, responsible for FAA and military air traffic control procedures, airfield operations, and supervision and training of personnel.
As a professional photographer for 30 years, he specializes in portrait, landscape, and macro photography, with a particular focus and passion for creating portraiture of shelter animals and rescues.
This combined background; enterprise program management, retail and supply chain execution, team leadership, and professional visual storytelling, positions him to bring new ideas and operational solutions to animal shelters. His work centers on applying modern retail and logistics thinking to shelter outcomes through the Retail Inventory Management Model for Shelters, scaling adoptions through Offsite Micro Adoption Events, and advancing the case for the Economic Value of Shelter Pets as community assets instead as homeless liabilities.
Jerry Thomas Smith
Founder, Chairman & CEO
California Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Inc.
Phone: 619-779-2522 (Call or text)
Email: jerry@californiaspca.org
Tax ID/EIN 93-4915451