Stephen A. Culp

Stephen Culp is the Founder & Chairman of Smart Furniture, Inc., Founder and CEO of Delegator, Inc., Founder of the non-profit Causeway, Inc., and a Co-Founder of Chattanooga STAND.

A licensed attorney, Stephen is also an officer in the U.S. Naval Reserve and former Peace Corps Volunteer, and serves on numerous non-profit boards including the local Trust for Public Land, CreateHere, Chattanooga 3D, RiverCity Company, Chamber of Commerce, InnovateHere, and Chattanooga STAND, one of the largest community visioning efforts in history. In 2010 he will represent the Chattanooga region as a Marshall Fellow in Europe.

Stephen received a BA in International Studies and Geography, ranked 8th in a class of 4,000, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, also lettering as an NCAA Division I varsity athlete in fencing.

While studying abroad in 1989 and '90, he produced an on-site photo & audio journal of the political revolutions breaking out across Eastern Europe. Traveling in Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East and West Berlin (vs. sitting in class), he spent Christmas 1989 hammering pieces off the Berlin Wall, pieces he keeps to this day.

 

Stephen Culp

 

Returning to the U.S., Stephen was awarded a small grant to do research for the United Nations, and then joined the United States Peace Corps. He taught high school in a small town in Hungary from 1992 to '94, where he was named Teacher of the Year in 1994.

Returning in 1994 to attend Stanford Law School, Stephen earned his Juris Doctor degree and a Graduate Fellowship at the Stanford Center on Conflict and Negotiation to study international terrorism. He worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington, DC the summer after his first year, and again as an Intelligence Research Specialist for the FBI Olympic Squad in Atlanta 1996, where he also ran a leg of the Olympic torch relay.

Honored as one of 40 Rising Stars in Retail, as the inventor and engineer of the patented Smart Furniture® and Design-On-Demand® systems, Stephen started Smart Furniture in a garage woodshop on the Stanford campus. Applying lessons from both Silicon Valley and the Peace Corps' ("help others help themselves"), Stephen designed the Smart Furniture product and business model with one goal— to make custom design available to a whole new market— everyone.

In 2001, Stephen returned to his former hometown, Chattanooga, Tennessee to launch Smart Furniture. Successfully closing venture capital rounds in 2004, 2006, and 2008, Smart Furniture has led as an innovator in its industry, with a talented team and unique culture, multiple patents, thousands of customers, and numerous industry honors— for its products, business model, and focus on ethics. As CEO, Stephen appeared on the cover of the November 2004 issue of Inc. Magazine.

Driven by a belief that diverse entrepreneurial ecosystem can drive economic, social, and civic progress, Stephen is currently working on several new business and civic initiatives, including Delegator, Inc. Causeway, Inc., and Chattanooga STAND.

Past speaking engagements include "Customer Service Best Practices" for the NRF "Big Show" in New York, and numerous other appearances on topics including small business, acquiring venture capital, Design-On-Demand, community engagement, and the importance of an entrepreneurial approach to everything.

Stephen was born in Birmingham, Alabama, youngest of five boys. His interests include international affairs, physical fitness, and asking too many questions. He has climbed the Grand Teton in Wyoming and Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, holds a black belt, and is (was) an avid surfer. He also used to speak several languages, but now, they’re all mixed up in his head. Stephen can also tell you what happens when you (1) drive a forklift perpendicular over a drainage ditch, (2) drive 30,000lbs of inventory across the country in a truck rated for 10,000lbs, and (3) drive away from a gas station with the pump still in the tank, twice.¦