ROBIN SMITH
Robin Graeme Smith FRICS, was born in Bromley on tenth March 1951, and lived much of his early life in and around Pinner, a London suburb. Always with an entrepreneurial eye, he tried his hand at a huge range of money making projects, selling paintings in Bayswater Road, making chess pieces, candles, hanging baskets, dealing in antiques, and football tables, insulating lofts and trading in sugar and frozen lamb.
He went to Vyners Grammar School in Hillingdon, and started a career as a Chartered Surveyor in 1970, qualifying, a few years later. His early career with W.G.Edwards, a small firm of Surveyors based in Waterloo concentrated on residential buildings however a move to St Martins Property Corporation meant that he was able to specialise in the Commercial Property sector. In 1974 he moved to Abbey Life as a Management Surveyor where he was quickly promoted to be responsible for the monthly revaluation of the entire portfolio.
At the age of thirty he was appointed Property Fund Manger for Permanent Insurance and Medical Sickness Group being responsible for both operational property and growing the Investment Portfolio. He married Gillian Welch and their son James was born in Oct 1979
Frustrated with Corporate life, despite being in the process of renovating a Victorian School hall to become his house, he set up Commercial and Industrial Property Consultants, in early 1984. Joanna was born in Feb 1982.
In 1995 Robin wrote and published a successful book called Bodygames which sold 10,000 copies, and he also wrote the Mrs Green Stories and Intergalactic Rescue. He played in a folk/rock band Young Once, always a song writer he was able to see many of his tracks performed and recorded including The Deceiver.
Despite many years as an independent property consultant, he was persuaded to return to W.G Edwards to set up a commercial division, where he remained until 2001. He negotiated the sale of the department to Ashdown Lyons, surveyors based in Wimbledon and remained with that Company until leaving in 2005, to travel the World for a year, with his soon to be wife Olga, having divorced some five years earlier.
Returning to England in 2006 he established a Business Support Consultancy concentrating on the SME market, whilst continuing to lecture on negotiation. However an opportunity soon arose to help set up an online tutorial business Redrok Media ( specialising in producing podcasts in subjects such as Elocution or How to Become a Published Author). An opportunity arose to take advantage of his life long passion for music, following the acquisition of a substantial portfolio of rare and unique, interviews and videos from the last sixty years of rock music. With many contacts in the Industry he was able to track down a significant amount of similar ‘forgotten’ content and concluded that he needed to save this music heritage before it all disappeared and so [1] was born in 2007. It continues to acquire rare content including videos, photos, articles, music, memorabilia and footage. In particular recording the memories of those around the music scene who have a story to tell. This is now well established and this resource is available to fans and the media industry, online at Rokpool.com and rokpoolextra.com for specialist music podcasts.
Robin pursues his twin passions of music and writing, and has set up the Rare Record Club to play unique tracks directly to aficionados at specially arranged monthly events. He remains as CEO of Rokpool.com and continues to work at growing the business and saving rock music history.