Dick Smith

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Dick Smith AO (born Richard Harold Smith on 1944-03-18) is an Australian businessman and aviator. He is commonly known for his qualities as an Australian patriot, and philanthropist.^{[citation needed]}

He gained his amateur radio licence at the age of 17 and holds callsign VK2DIK [1][2]. In 1968, he founded a small electronics retailer Dick Smith Electronics. In 1982, he sold the business to Woolworths for $25 million, although the business still retained his name in the business title and his image as the company logo. Over the years, his electronics company had many hostile fights with Radio Shack which tried to push him out of the market.^{[citation needed]} He fought back (once, by staging a demonstration outside their store) and often won by Australians supporting one of their own.^{[citation needed]}

Dick Smith Electronics also entered the United States with stores in Southern California, but these were closed in the late 1980s, as he didn't have enough money to follow through with his plans of expanding his business.

Having pursued many adventures as a Rover Scout with the East Roseville Rover Crew in Sydney, Australia, in 1983, he made the first solo helicopter flight around the world.[3] During the trip he landed on container ships at sea to refuel. In 1985, he founded the magazine Australian Geographic, a National Geographic-style magazine focusing on Australia. Smith didn't want to greatly expand Australian Geographic, but his friend and CEO Ike Bain convinced him to change his mind and soon it was a thriving business.

Smith has also attempted a number of well-publicised practical jokes, the grandest of which was the "attempt" to tow an iceberg from Antarctica to Australia to obtain more fresh water. In the early 1980's Dick Smith served as the conductor aboard a London double decker bus which jumped 25 Harley Davidson Motorcycles. The bus, driven by Hans Tholstrup, was an attempt to upstage Evel Knievel who was visiting Australia to jump a Harley Davidson over 24 London Buses. Dick Smith's presence on the bus was a last minute decision by himself.^[1][2]

Dick Smith won the 1986 Australian of the Year. He is a prominent member of the Australian Skeptics, and supported research into water divining.

Smith has been a vocal advocate for the civil aviation industry and served as Chairman of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority Board twice, 1990–1992 and 1997–1999.

Smith founded Dick Smith Foods (DSF) in 1999, marketed as a crusade against foreign ownership of Australian food producers, particularly Arnott's biscuits. DSF only sells foods produced in Australia by Australian-owned companies.^{[citation needed]} Dick Smith products are often named to parody the items they compete with — for example, in competition with Redheads matches, Smith sells near-identically packaged matches called Dickheads. A chocolate biscuit called "Temptin'" competed directly with the established favourite Arnotts Tim Tam. In 2003 Arnotts took legal action against DSF, resulting in an out-of-court settlement that required the "p" in the Temptin' logo to be increased in size. [4]

In 2004, Smith gave public support to the asylum seeker Peter Qasim, eventually released in 2005 by the Australian Government after 7 years in detainment. This support included a visit to Afghanistan seeking evidence of Qasim's claims. ^{[3] [4]}

On 2006-01-07, Smith flew his Cessna from Sydney to Harihari on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island to mark the 75th anniversary of the first solo trans-Tasman flight by Guy Menzies in 1931^[5].

In 2007, Dick Smith donated AU$60,000 towards the campaign to secure a fair trial for Australian terrorism suspect David Hicks, who had been held in a U.S. military prison in Cuba's Guantanamo bay for 5 years without charge. ^[6]

[edit] References

[edit] Further reading

• Monica Attard. "Sunday Profile interview with Dick Smith", Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 2005-07-17.
• Bain, Ike. The Dick Smith Way, McGraw-Hill, Sydney, 2002.

Preceded by Paul Hogan

Australian of the Year 1986

Succeeded by John Farnham