Born in Cleveland, Kent Hale Smith (1894–1980) graduated from Dartmouth in 1915 and two years later earned a degree in chemical engineering from Case Institute of Technology. He joined Dow Chemical (which his father, A. W. Smith, a chemistry professor at Case, had co-founded with Herbert Dow in 1897), leaving to serve as an engineer in the Army Signal Corps aviation section. After the war he worked as a courier for the Peace Commission in France, returned briefly to Dow, then headed a real estate construction and development firm. In 1928, Smith and his two younger brothers co-founded Graphite Oil Products Company. What began as an experiment, with the brothers mixing oil additives in their mother’s large cooking pot in a rented garage, would become the Lubrizol Corporation, a worldwide lubricant manufacturer. Smith served as company president or vice president from 1928 to 1951, then as chairman of the board (1951–59), and continued as a director until his retirement in 1967.

Smith was president of Euclid Glenville Hospital, chairman of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and Greater Cleveland Associated Foundation, and board member of the Cleveland Institute of Art and Holden Arboretum. He remained closely tied to his alma mater, becoming a Case trustee in 1949 and serving as acting president from 1958 to 1961. He advocated for the consolidation of Case and Western Reserve University, and the two institutions merged in 1967 as Case Western Reserve University (CWRU). In 2010, the Kent H. Smith Charitable Trust donated $10.5 million to CWRU’s new university center, which will house 160 student organizations.