By Joe McGonegal
FEATURES
The rise of Michael, BSBA ’61, and Larry Smith, BSBA ’65, begins with a fall.
The Smith brothers—who grew up in a Chelsea triple decker in the shadow of the Tobin Bridge and worked their way through Suffolk—went on to found one of the country’s largest and most successful roadside assistance companies.
Yet a defining incident in their lives happened shortly before they were born. In the 1930s, their grandfather, a 50-year-old Jewish immigrant, fell to his death while washing windows on a Boylston Street high-rise—just blocks from where his grandsons would later become the first members of their family to graduate from college.
“He fell off a building next to the Colonial Theatre, probably as the result of a heart attack,” Michael says. His death plunged his widow and seven children—including Harry Smith, Michael and Larry’s father—into real financial peril.
“My father had to quit school to help support his brothers and sisters,” Larry says. “He had always wanted to go to college, but never got the chance.”
The Smiths have spent much of their adult lives helping other students get just that kind of chance, giving more than $5 million to the University that gave them their start. And this summer, they committed another $2 million to benefit Suffolk’s athletics program and the scholarship they endowed in memory of a childhood friend.
On Tremont Street, just blocks from where their grandfather died, the Michael and Larry Smith Residence Hall is now home to more than 400 Suffolk students—a powerful symbol of how one generation can create access and opportunity for the next.
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Photograph by Faith Ninivaggi
| Fall 2022
Entrepreneurs from an early age
Larry and Michael Smith grew up in a Jewish working-class neighborhood in Chelsea. Their grandparents had emigrated from Eastern Europe and Russia around the turn of the 20th century, their father’s family exchanging an old-world name for the all-purpose moniker “Smith” at Ellis Island.
As boys, Larry and Michael worked odd jobs around Chelsea. When they turned 14, they each got work permits and their first payroll jobs—at Fenway Park. “We worked there for 10 or 11 years,” Larry recalls, “selling souvenirs, programs, peanuts, through junior high, high school, and college.”
Located in a beat-up grocery store next to the Registry of Motor Vehicles, that first agency didn’t look like much. Michael started it with $200 in his pocket and a typewriter. When other agencies wouldn’t touch high-risk drivers under age 25, the Smiths got a loan from Shawmut Bank and found a company that would underwrite those policies. Well before H&R Block became a national chain, they recruited bookkeepers from Brockton factories and launched a tax-preparation service on the side.
“We were still single, so we lived with our parents,” Michael says. “We ate a lot of bologna and eggs.”
Gradually, they built a chain of agencies around Boston, followed by a motor club. After the infamous Blizzard of 1978 crippled much of the region, the brothers moved south. They landed in Coral Springs, Florida, where in the ensuing decades they established a small empire of roadside assistance auto insurance fleets. Their company, Nation Safe Drivers, vied with AAA for industry dominance, and partnered with thousands of tow companies and agencies nationwide. And they kept innovating. When most agencies were still poring over giant ratings books, they developed software to automate the process—and then sold that software to other agencies.
"At the end of 50 years of work, we had 10,000 insurance agents throughout the nation and almost 500 employees,” Michael says.
They also received lucrative offers to sell the company. Ultimately, when it came time to retire, they sold Nation Safe Drivers to their employees—a deal that not only benefited them but the people who worked for them. When they visit the office now, Larry says, “we’re greeted with hugs.”
“All from $200,” Michael says. “Larry and I sit over a glass of wine sometimes, and we can’t figure out how that all happened.”
Building their empire
Friendship and fraternity
Michael (top) and Larry (left) Smith grew up in a Chelsea triple decker in the shadow of the Tobin Bridge. They went on to found one of the country’s largest roadside assistance companies—and to transform the Suffolk campus and its Athletics program with their philanthropy, including a new $2 million commitment this summer.
“If the Sox were out of town, I worked as a bellhop in the Hotel Bostonian,” Michael adds, and Larry served as an elevator attendant at a Bromfield Street office building. These jobs gave them an early introduction to business culture. They also put nearby Suffolk University on their radars.
Suffolk made sense for a lot of reasons. Both brothers liked its proximity to the business district, its community spirit, and the short commute from Chelsea. And in Benson Diamond, their business professor, they found a mentor. When Michael was a senior, Diamond encouraged him to get licensed in a variety of areas, including real estate, finance, and insurance. Michael found the last of these most immediately useful in the working world following his graduation in 1961.
“I tried to work for Continental Insurance for a time, but if you weren’t from the elite schools,” Michael recalls, “you didn’t get the key to the men’s room upstairs. So that didn’t go over too well. Then I worked for a guy in Malden, a small insurance agency. I said, ‘Hey, I can do this by myself.’”
Meanwhile, Larry—who earned a scholarship to Suffolk—was wearing number 21 as the center on Coach Charlie Law’s basketball team, increasing an athletics legacy he had built as a state champion in junior high and high school. When he graduated in 1965, Larry joined Michael in the new family business, starting an auto insurance business in nearby Brockton.
As with many philanthropists, for Michael and Larry Smith giving back is tied at least in part to camaraderie.
Private First Class Sheldon Cohen, Larry’s high school and Suffolk classmate, is interred at Mishna Cemetery in Everett, a mile from his childhood home in Chelsea. The brothers visit the grave of their fallen friend often. One of more than 58,000 casualties of the Vietnam War, Sheldon’s death had a profound impact on them.
As youngsters, Larry recalls, he and Sheldon sold newspapers on a corner in Chelsea. Over time, Vietnam began to dominate the headlines. By the time they enrolled at Suffolk, American casualties were mounting steadily. Even so, Larry says, “Sheldon thought it was the right thing to do, to go into the military.”
Cohen died in an exchange of small arms fire in Pleiku Province, Vietnam in May 1966 at age 22, the same age Larry was when he graduated from Suffolk.
In 2004, the Smith brothers established a scholarship to honor Cohen. For close to two decades, the Private Sheldon R. Cohen Scholarship has lifted up young women and men just like him, natives of Chelsea who wouldn’t otherwise have the financial means to attend Suffolk—and it will continue to do so in perpetuity.
Across the Suffolk campus, the names Larry and Michael Smith have become synonymous with leadership giving and service. While they both have their own passion projects and causes in retirement, to this day they have had no differences of opinion when it comes to their allegiance to their roots, including Suffolk University. Both are perpetual advocates for the University, and Larry serves on the Board of Trustees.
“The Smith brothers brought athletics at Suffolk to a new level,” says their longtime friend, Suffolk’s legendary coach and Athletics Director Emeritus James Nelson. “The renovations to the fitness center and their investment in new sports, a team bus, and athletic uniforms have spawned a new era for Suffolk.”
As Suffolk Athletics’ all-time most generous supporters, the Smiths have had “a transformational impact on the Rams,” agrees Athletics Director Cary McConnell. “Their support has allowed us to double the number of student athletes, add six new intercollegiate sports, and move into a new athletic conference. It’s changed the whole landscape for Suffolk.”
The Honorable Amy Nechtem, JD ’85, chief justice of the Massachusetts Juvenile Court Department and vice chair of the Suffolk trustees, has a unique vantage point on the Smiths’ impact. “Larry and I grew up together in Chelsea, and I am so proud of all of his business successes through the years,” she says. “He and Michael have always been active Suffolk alumni, and Larry’s service on the board has been outstanding.”
Beginning in the 1990s, the Smiths made leadership giving at Suffolk a priority. In the decades that have followed, Smith gifts have underwritten investment not only in scholarships and Suffolk athletics, but in the University’s infrastructure. The Smith name appears across campus from north to south now, from both the Michael and Larry Smith Fitness Center and the Larry and Michael Smith Court in the Ridgeway Building to the Smith Dining Hall in the Samia Academic Center to the Smith Residence Hall. And in the summer of 2022, Larry and Michael pledged $2 million more to improvements in athletics and the Sheldon R. Cohen Scholarship Fund.
“It is a remarkable act of generosity in a lifetime filled with them,” says Suffolk President Marisa Kelly. “Thanks to Michael and Larry, we’ll be able to further enhance the experience of our student-athletes, expand our intercollegiate offerings, and strengthen community-building throughout the entire University.”
Both brothers have served as marshals at Suffolk commencements in recent years. But the 2021 Commencement, held at Fenway Park, was particularly special for Larry. Wearing full academic regalia, the first-generation college graduate turned business executive and now trustee led the Sawyer Business School graduating class to the stage in the outfield, past the stands where he’d once sold peanuts and programs.
Neither Larry nor Michael takes their success for granted—and neither has forgotten their roots.
“If it wasn’t for Suffolk,” Larry says, “I’d be washing windows.”
Philanthropy, service, and legacy
Michael and Larry Smith’s support “has brought athletics at Suffolk to a new level,” says their longtime friend, Suffolk’s legendary coach and Athletics Director Emeritus James Nelson.