For the past 58 years, Eddie Smith Jr. has transformed Grady-White Boats from a near-bankrupt North Carolina boat manufacturer into a company generating hundreds of millions of dollars in annual revenue. He worked 100-hour weeks, gave up golf for decades, and poured his life savings into keeping the business afloat.
Now 83, Smith has decided it’s time to step away—but instead of pocketing one of the many offers “way north” of $400 million for his company, he’s donating the company’s future profits to charity.
“I just think that those of us that are fortunate enough to be in a position to help others…It’s really a gift to me to be able to do what I do,” Smith told Fortune.
Earlier this month, Smith transferred ownership of the company to a perpetual purpose trust and nonprofit structure designed to maintain independence and direct future profits toward philanthropic causes.
The move was inspired in part by Yvon Chouinard, who in 2022 transferred ownership of Patagonia to a trust and nonprofit organization to ensure his outdoor apparel company remained mission-driven while using its profits to combat climate change and protect undeveloped land.
Smith said he hopes that other entrepreneurs will consider following a similar path—or, at the very least, give a second thought toward more giving and rethink what happens to the companies they spend a lifetime building.
“I think there’s room for a lot more [philanthropy] in our country,” he said.
Smith went from eating Spam daily to working 100-hour weeks building a multimillion-dollar boating company
Smith grew up in central North Carolina in what he described as a poor family. His father was orphaned during the Great Depression after losing both parents by age 10, but despite the hardship, Smith said he always chose optimism over self-pity.
Money was tight. Smith remembers eating Spam three times a day while his father worked odd jobs, including driving a taxi, before eventually scraping together enough money to launch a mail-order hosiery business.
As a boy, Smith lied about his age to land a paper route, and he later became the first in his family to attend college. He spent three years working for his father’s business after graduating from the University of North Carolina in 1965, before getting the entrepreneurial itch after finding Grady-White Boats in a near-bankrupt state.
“I had an unhealthy desire to prove to myself that I could do something on my own,” Smith said. “I took a flyer at 26. Borrowed just a little bit of money—there was nothing much to buy—and the first five or six years were really tough.”
The business consumed nearly every waking hour. Smith said he belonged to three golf clubs when he bought the company but didn’t swing a club again for decades. For the first four or five years, he rarely took a day off, routinely working 80- to 100-hour weeks to keep the company alive.
Grady-White spends up to $400K each year paying employees to read—it’s a culture Eddie Smith just couldn’t sell
Smith’s sacrifices eventually built more than a successful company—they created a workplace culture Smith wasn’t willing to see disappear.
Grady-White spends $350,000 to $400,000 each year paying employees to read self-improvement books. Every Friday morning, workers gather for companywide sessions on topics ranging from physical health and family relationships to financial well-being.
The company also offers profit sharing and employs a corporate chaplain—benefits Smith said reflect his belief that a business should improve employees’ lives both inside and outside the workplace.
As he grew older, Smith watched many of his longtime friends sell the businesses they’d spend decades building—only to regret what happened next.
“All of them were really disappointed in what happened to their companies after the sale. They lost their way,” Smith told Fortune. “They lost their culture that they had built, and I just couldn’t bear the thought of that happening.”
The question of what to do with his company became even more pressing after Smith’s wife, Jo, died in 2021. A year later, his son, Chris, died from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), leaving him without the family successor he had once envisioned.
While purpose trust moves deployed by Grady-White and Patagonia have been criticized as a way to dodge taxes, Natalie Reitman-White, the founder of Purpose Owned, said they are an alternative way for owners who really care about the continuity of the company
Under the arrangement, Grady-White’s voting shares were transferred to the perpetual purpose trust, ensuring the company cannot be sold and continues operating according to Smith’s values, including profit sharing. The remaining non-voting shares were placed under the 501(c)(4), which plans to donate tens of millions of dollars annually to education, healthcare, conservation, and the local community. Both entities will be overseen by independent boards that do not include Smith, who will remain chief executive emeritus.
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