Education and Early Career
Smith was born in Rangiora and educated at the Canterbury University achieving 1st Class Honours in Civil Engineering, was an AFS Scholar to the U.S. and eventually gained a PhD with a thesis on New Zealand landslides. Before entering parliament, he worked as an engineer for the Rangiora County Council, and as director of his family construction company. He also served on the Rangiora District Council, standing while still at secondary school in 1983, and successfully standing again in 1986 aged 21.
Read more about this topic: Nick Smith (New Zealand Politician)
Famous quotes containing the words education, early and/or career:
“One of the benefits of a college education is, to show the boy its little avail.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)