Ray Smith 

Ray Smith has had a passion for public speaking in all its forms since joining his Speech and Debate Team in high school. Since 2000, he has worked steadily in theater as an actor, director and teacher. He completed the Second City Theater Conservatory in Toronto in 2007. He has acted in 3 dozen scripted shows and has been in hundreds of improvisational theater performances. He has directed 10 productions and been a stage manager on 18 shows. He began teaching public speaking in 2011 and coaching the Speech and Debate team at Woodberry Forest School in 2013. During his time at Woodberry, he raised the profile of the team, leading them to consistently land in the top ten in Virginia every year. Ray believes in an audience-centric approach to public speaking: know your audience; write your speech with your audience guiding you; deliver your speech in a shape that fits your audience. Ray is also fluent in Spanish, and has taught it at the high school and pre-school levels. He studied Spanish at the University of Virginia and Middlebury College.