[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 4] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 6050-6051] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]TRIBUTE TO DANIEL R. SMITH, SR. ______ HON. MARK UDALL of colorado in the house of representatives Friday, March 9, 2007 Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Madam Speaker, I rise to speak about Daniel R. ``Dan'' Smith, Sr., a truly remarkable man who will be celebrating his 75th birthday this Sunday, March 11. Born in Winsted, CT, on March 11, 1932, Dan is one of a few surviving African-American children of a slave. His father, Abram Smith, was born in 1863. Age 70 when Dan was born, he died when Dan was 6. Dan's mother, Clara Wheeler Smith, was a young bride. A domestic worker, she raised her 8 children plus other foster children. Dan graduated from Gilbert High School in Winsted, Connecticut. He entered the U.S. Army and served in Korea as a medic, operating room technician, in the Korean War. He also was trained as a water safety instructor and after returning home from Korea, he performed heroic actions during the 1955 Winsted flood, diving into a raging river and saving a man's life. Dan attended Springfield College, in Massachusetts, where he majored in general studies with minors in psychology and sociology. He was elected student body president and graduated in 1960. During the 1960s he had a broad range of professional experiences. Building on his education and experiences as a medic in the Army, he served as a social worker at Norwich State Hospital, a 3,000 bed psychiatric hospital in Connecticut, and at the Seaside Regional Center for the mentally retarded in Waterford, Connecticut. One of Dan's many loves is animals, especially dogs. During high school he had worked for a veterinarian and learned to be a dog trainer. He took additional pre-med courses and was accepted into the Veterinary School of Tuskegee Institute, Alabama. This was during the height of the Civil Rights movement, however, and the pull of public service was strong. Dan left his studies to become executive director of an anti-poverty program launched by Sargent Shriver in Lowndes County, Alabama, one of the Civil Rights' ``hot beds.'' The church in which his program was housed was burned by arsonists, but he had carefully saved all his documentation, and was able to start again almost immediately. He participated in many Civil Rights activities and nearly lost his life at the hands of the KKK. He was with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., on the march from Selma to Montgomery. As a result of his excellent administration of the anti-poverty program, Mr. Smith was given the opportunity to enter the Federal Government at the national office of VISTA in Washington, DC. He later moved to the Office of Health Affairs in the Office of Economic Opportunity, OEO. While at OEO he served as Assistant Chief of Program Development, and developed a national program of Neighborhood Health Centers, NHCs, that provided ambulatory health care for low income communities throughout the United States, using a medical team approach. He was responsible for developing NHCs in Bedford Stuyvesant, San Francisco's Chinatown, and St. Louis, Missouri. He also established and served as Chief of OEO's Consumer Affairs office, where he designed a pilot multi- dimensional training program. In 1972, Dan became the National Director and Chief of the Area Health Education Program (AHEC), a medical health education program that he designed and implemented at the National Institutes of Health. He worked with medical schools throughout the United States to provide more primary care and family practice physicians and related health professionals. At $165 million annually, it became the largest social contract program in the nation. One of the finest of these programs continues today at the University of Colorado's School of Medicine. Acknowledged as the ``father'' of AHEC, Dan received a distinguished service award for his outstanding management of the program. During the 1980s Dan was awarded an IPA (Intergovernmental Personnel Agreement) position at Georgetown University Medical School as a Research Associate, where he was involved in research and teaching. He returned to the Federal Government as Director of Bilateral and Sub- Saharan African Programs in the Office of International Health and was responsible for developing Emergency Medical Services programs in Lebanon, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Because of his expertise in administrating medical programs, in 1986 the White House officially requested his assistance with the Republic of South Africa to develop a program similar to AHEC. He was subsequently invited by Archbishop Desmond Tutu to attend his Capetown installation as the Episcopal Bishop of South Africa. Dan later served as Special Projects Manager in the Administrator's Office of the Department of Health and Human Services. He retired from the Federal Government in 1994. Still working, Dan has established and owns an import/export company, Takoma Enterprises LLC, for which he serves as president and CEO. Active in community and religious organizations, he served on the board of trustees of Springfield College and senior warden of St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Bethesda, MD. An usher at the Washington National Cathedral, Dan served as head usher at the Cathedral, where he has escorted Presidents and other dignitaries at special services, including the memorial service following the events of September 11, 2001. Dan has four surviving siblings who still reside in Connecticut: His brother, A. Wilson ``Abe'' Smith, and sisters Marion Hanson, Jenny Brown and Henrietta Reed. He has two adult children from a previous marriage. His daughter April is married to a South African, Andrew Motaung. Both are teachers with advanced degrees. They have a 3\1/2\- year-old child, Tselane, and live in Columbia, MD. His son, Daniel Robert Smith, Jr., a graduate of [[Page 6051]] Syracuse University, is an actor who resides in New York City, stage name Robert Mauzell. In 2002 Dan met Loretta Neumann, a neighbor. It should be noted that Loretta worked for me as a legislative assistant before she retired in 2001 and, during the 1970s and 1980s, she also worked for the House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee when it was chaired by my father, Morris K. Udall, and for Representative John F. Seiberling of Ohio, who chaired the Committee's Public Lands and National Parks Subcommittee. Last but not least, Dan and Loretta were married on October 28, 2006, at the Washington National Cathedral. They reside in the Takoma neighborhood of Washington, DC, and from all reports are truly living happily ever after. ____________________