According to a Disney release, Smoot has spent 24 years at Disney and has a total of 102 patents, the most patents by anyone at the company. Smoot said his love for engineering and inventing was inspired by his father, who he describes as a jack-of-all-trades.
“Growing up, our family did not have a lot of money,” Smoot said in the release. “My dad was a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and taught himself how to make many mechanical gadgets, including several of my early toys. One of my earliest childhood memories was him bringing home an electric bell, a light bulb, some batteries, and wire. He set up the bell to ring and the bulb to light, and that light lit my career!”
