Life journey leads to pet hospital

Scott Smiley took the long road to a career in veterinary medicine.

A journey that began at the family farm near Columbia Falls took him literally around the world and into all kinds of jobs before it came full circle in June when he accepted an associate veterinarian position at Alpine Animal Hospital.

Shortly before he settled into his new job, the road led to Sri Lanka, where he spent a month helping farmers re-establish the cattle industry after the devastation of the December 2004 tsunami.

Smiley, 33, had kept in touch with a college rugby teammate from Sri Lanka and spent time with him in Sri Lanka long before the tsunami.

When the time came for Smiley to fulfill a three-week senior project to earn his veterinary medicine degree at Washington State University, he planned to go to another country to complete the assignment.

"During this three-week period you can work with a vet anywhere," he said. "The idea is to address some aspect of education."

In a serendipitous twist, two other rugby teammates, one the owner of Big Sky Brewery in Missoula and the other a Spokane firefighter, were already establishing Community Focused Disaster Response (www.cfdrhome.com) to help with tsunami disaster relief. The organization, now made up of Spokane firefighters and selected independent volunteer professionals, is still involved in recovery projects in Komari, on the east coast of Sri Lanka.

"They had a camp established; all I had to do was get there," Smiley said.

During his time in Sri Lanka, Smiley met with cattle and water buffalo ranchers to learn how he could help with the process of getting agriculture restarted in the wake of the tsunami.

"They know what to do and how to do it," Smiley observed. "It was important for us to say we're not coming in to tell you how to fix everything."

He quickly found out that a blend of religious, ethnic and political tensions make getting even the most basic supplies a challenge.

Komari was one of the last towns to receive relief after the tsunami, and struggled with poverty even before the devastation. The day the tsunami hit that area, it was testing power lines to bring electricity to the area for the first time.

SMILEY ALWAYS liked working with animals. As a farm boy, feeding cattle was a daily chore, and he helped out with calving as needed. His parents, Dan and Jane Smiley of Kalispell, also had a ranch near East Glacier where the family spent part of the year.

"When I think about it now, having the Bob Marshall [Wilderness] as a back door was pretty nice," he said.

Although animals were a big part of his early life, thoughts of being a veterinarian wouldn't cross his mind until many years later.

After high school, he studied civil engineering for a year at Montana State University, then transferred to the University of Montana, where he spent a year studying art and a second year studying math.

Realizing he still didn't know what direction to take, he dropped out of college and began a long stint of working and traveling. He worked on ranches and in restaurants mostly, but he also got jobs in construction, gardening and even carriage driving.

"I had every job in a restaurant except owning one," he said. "It was a learning experience, that's for sure."

He'd travel, then work to save up money so he could travel again.

His parents were always supportive, he recalled.

"They gave me encouragement and guidance, but they never told me what to do," he said. "There was a lot of love and support."

Smiley eventually wound up in college again, at the University of Montana where he earned a degree in botany. Field biology was where he was headed.

"I did that for three seasons. I hiked all over Montana and Central Idaho. I loved it, but I gave up on that, too," he said. "It seemed like there was a disconnect between the data collected and the way it was being used, in my perception."

Smiley worked a year for Craighead Wildlife and Wildlands Institute and considered it one of the best jobs he's ever had. He also spent a couple of years doing field biology for the U.S. Forest Service.

"Craighead was smaller and you could effect change more easily," he said.

The slow pace of change during his work with the Forest Service, though, frustrated him.

"It's easy for me to say something needs to be done, and I understand in reality it takes a lot [for the federal government] to do it."

Smiley also didn't like the seasonal nature of field biology. The prospect of a desk job during the winter didn't appeal to him.

So he went back to his wanderlust lifestyle, working at more odd jobs until he made the decision to study veterinary medicine.

"I wanted something I could do physically and something that would also stimulate my mind, and I like being around agriculture," Smiley said.

He earned his degree from Washington State in May, after having taken additional coursework in international veterinary medicine, wildlife diseases, large-animal surgery and anatomy, equine lameness, herd-animal production and camelid medicine.

At Alpine Animal Hospital, just south of Whitefish, most of the workload is with cats, dogs and horses.

"I'd like to see more cows and goats," he said.

He likes being able to put the theory he's learned into practical application. He also likes the variety of his new job.

"On any given day, you can be totally surprised, and that's part of the appeal," he said.