COLUMBUS — Eugene D. Smith, who ran Ohio State’s athletic department for more than a decade, now has a seat on the board of one of the state’s largest homebuilders.
M/I Homes, Inc. announced Sunday that shareholders elected Smith to the company’s board of directors at the 2026 Annual Meeting on May 13. He replaces Norman L. Traeger, who retired from the board at that same meeting.
Short version: the guy who oversaw a $2 billion-plus athletic operation is switching to housing.
Smith previously served as senior vice president and director of athletics at The Ohio State University. He’s now running Gene Smith Consulting, LLC. M/I Homes — traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker MHO — is headquartered in Columbus and ranks among the country’s bigger publicly traded homebuilders.
Robert H. Schottenstein, chairman and CEO of M/I Homes, didn’t hide his enthusiasm. “We’re very pleased to have Gene join our Board,” Schottenstein said in a statement.
The full scope of Smith’s role on the board — committee assignments, compensation details — hasn’t been disclosed yet. That’s typical; companies often file those specifics in later SEC documents.
What isn’t typical is the profile. Smith spent years as one of the most visible athletic administrators in the country, overseeing 36 varsity sports and navigating the chaos of conference realignment, name-image-likeness rules, and a football program that draws 100,000-plus fans on Saturdays. Moving to a corporate board in a completely different industry is a pivot, though retired university executives landing on public company boards isn’t unheard of.
Traeger’s departure removes a long-tenured director. The company didn’t elaborate on the circumstances of his retirement beyond calling it a standard exit at the annual meeting.
M/I Homes hasn’t said whether it plans to fill any additional board seats or whether Smith’s election changes the board’s total size. The company’s next quarterly earnings report — and the proxy filings that follow — should fill in the gaps.
Originally reported by Benzinga. Read the original report.
