The founding organizing director for City First Bank, Lloyd D. Smith’s pioneering leadership in housing, community and economic development in the Washington Metropolitan area yields a long and storied list of accomplishments.
As the President and CEO of the Marshall Heights Community Development Organization, during the 1980s and 1990s, Smith ushered in an era of unprecedented growth, leading the organization from an annual budget of $115,000 to over $5 million. Smith became well known for his signature single and multifamily housing and mixed-use retail properties, and for employing social service programs in the communities he helped develop. Prior to joining City First Bank, he had acquired some 27 years of federal and district government service and was a mayoral appointee to the Board of the National Capital Revitalization Corporation. He became Chairman and served as acting President of both organizations, and was featured in several documentaries.
In 1991, Mr. Smith helped organize the visit of former First Lady Barbara Bush and Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom to DC’s Ward 7; following her visit a street in the ward was named Queen Elizabeth’s Way. President Clinton toured the area in 1993. That same year, Lloyd Smith met with two-dozen community development leaders gathered in a Washington, DC church basement. Organizers were concerned about the toll on low-income neighborhoods from decades of divestment and discrimination. Confident that the marketplace could do a better job, they worked to create a financial institution to help neighborhoods that had been ignored.
City First Bank launched in late 1998. Smith was the recipient of numerous national and international awards and honors, including the 1993 Local Minority Business Advocate Award; 1994 Points of Light Foundation Community Leadership Award; the DC Building Industry Association’s Community Service Award; and the Local Minority Business Advocate Award presented at the 8th Annual Salute to Blacks in Business. Following these illustrious accomplishments, Mr. Smith was inducted into the District of Columbia Hall of Fame Society in 2002.