Hunter
Smith.

Growing up, our dinner table was a business school. In 6th grade, my dad took a step of faith to start his lifelong dream — his very own solar and HVAC company. What followed was a front-row education in what entrepreneurship actually looks like: not the startup mythology, but the real thing. Long days, tight margins, and an unshakeable belief that if you serve people with quality and integrity, growth will follow.

My family grew that company from 4 to 30 employees. Along the way I was right there alongside them — doing solar installations on rooftops in 100-degree heat, helping at trade fairs, learning that no job is beneath a person of good character. Those summers shaped my understanding of customer service, team culture, and what it means to build something that matters to your community.

Climate & Energy Solutions — Chico, CA. My family's business, from the ground up.

I grew up in Chico, California, homeschooled alongside my older sister in a close-knit family of four. That upbringing gave me something rare: time to think deeply, pursue curiosity, and develop character before the world told me who to be. My parents modeled what it looks like to build a business on ethics — not just profit — and that belief is woven into everything I do now.

Twelve years in BSA. Seven leadership positions. One Eagle Scout project. And a near-mutiny on Catalina Island that taught me more about leadership than any textbook.

As Senior Patrol Leader — the highest position a Scout can hold — I was responsible for leading meetings, making executive decisions, and running our summer camp on Catalina Island. After the first few action-packed days, the troop participated in a canoeing overnight campout. What should have been the best night of camp became something else entirely: delayed shipments and staff disorganization had led to a food shortage, and the teen boys were starving and furious.

After a night of hunger-driven complaints, creative problem-solving to scrounge up dinner, and some deep thinking before bed — I knew I had to say something. In the morning, I addressed the whole group: even when circumstances are rough, we ought to be problem-solvers, not complainers. Protests don't make matters better. A camping trip that doesn't go according to plan is often the most memorable one you'll have.

Left: Camp Emerald Bay, Catalina Island, 2022. Right: My Eagle Scout project — a flagpole installed in front of our high school.

The response was resounding acknowledgment, and a choice to be more grateful. I realized that moment was the culmination of everything scouting had been building in me: real leadership goes far beyond fitting the part. It's using your knowledge and past experience to serve, inspire, and equip others to grow beyond what they thought possible.

For my Eagle Scout project, I planned, fundraised, and led a team of six Scouts and four adults in installing a flagpole in front of our new high school. I made sure to dig dirt and pour cement right alongside everyone else. A leader is never above any task.

Music found me young — and in those early years, it looked a lot like work. Scales before breakfast. Metronome on the whole time. Recitals where you played the same piece forty-seven times until it was precise. I loved the discipline of it. There's something deeply satisfying about mastering something difficult, about feeling the mechanics of a complex piece click into place under your fingers.

But over time, something shifted. The more I learned the rules, the more I wanted to break them — thoughtfully. I started playing by ear, composing without a plan, sitting at the piano with nothing but a feeling and seeing what came out. I picked up drums. Then guitar. Each instrument opened a different door into the same room.

Chasing the golden hour.

At Cal Poly, my music minor has pushed me into production projects I never expected: recording, mixing, arrangement, collaborative creation with other musicians. It's a completely different kind of problem-solving — one where the goal isn't efficiency but feeling. That balance is something I've come to need.

Playing on collaborative worship teams has added a dimension beyond performance. When music is shared with a community around a common purpose, something happens that no solo set can replicate. It's connective tissue. It's the room breathing together. That experience of giving something away through music — and watching it land — is one of the most grounding things in my life. Music isn't a hobby anymore. It's how I rest, create, and stay whole.

I'm not the finance student who spent summers at Goldman. I'm the one who forfeited a traditional internship and spent the summer in Malawi, Africa — teaching agricultural and entrepreneurial workshops in communities that had never encountered a formal business curriculum, and interviewing local business owners about their economic struggles and hopes.

Teaching a Business Management workshop in Malawi, Africa — Summer 2025.

At Cal Poly, I maintain a 4.0 GPA and serve as an Independent Student Advisor (TA) for BUS 342 Corporate Finance — leading review sessions, grading, and tutoring students one-on-one. I've worked through 11 collaborative group projects and learned that the most important skill in finance has nothing to do with Excel. It's the ability to work with integrity and patience alongside people you didn't choose.

I'm pursuing Finance with minors in Real Property Development and Music — not because I mapped out a perfect career strategy, but because I genuinely believe well-roundedness is a competitive advantage. Narrowing down felt like leaving parts of myself behind.

Long-term: wealth management — walking alongside people through financial mountains and valleys, helping them move toward their dreams. But the path there is still being written. And I've made peace with that.

If you're afraid of something, you should try it. That principle has taken me some places that tested it. Mt. Whitney — 14,505 ft, the highest point in the contiguous US — was one of them. Cold pre-dawn start. Twenty-two miles round-trip. Altitude that makes your lungs negotiate. But standing on that summit, with nothing but sky above you, you understand in your body something you've only known in your head: you can do hard things. Grit isn't built in comfort. It's built in the places you almost turned back.

Left: Mt. Whitney summit, 14,505 ft. Right: The Milky Way from the backcountry — what the wilderness gives you when you stay past dark.

Photography became my way of paying attention. I run a weekly adventure photography account on Instagram (@hsmith27_photo) — not for the numbers, but because the discipline of looking for beauty in ordinary places has changed how I see everything. When you're trying to capture a moment, you actually have to be present for it. The camera taught me that.

What lies ahead on the trail — I can't fully see it yet. That used to feel unsettling. Now it feels like the best kind of invitation. I don't know if the path leads to wealth management, international development, both, or something I haven't imagined yet. What I do know: I'll give it everything, keep cultivating wonder, and bring as many people as I can along for the journey.

The summit is still ahead. And I've never been more ready to climb.