Ted Smith is the founder and former Executive Director of the Silicon Valley Toxic Coalition. He currently serves as the Senior Strategist for SVTC. Smith is also the co-founder and Coordinator of the International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT), an international network committed to working for the development of sustainable, non-polluting technologies. In addition, he is also the steering committee chair of the "Computer TakeBack Campaign", which is working to promote life-cycle producer responsibility within the high-tech electronics industry. He is co-editor of the book Challenging the Chip: Labor Rights and Environmental Justice in the Global Electronics Industry (2006). In 2001, Ted was recognized by the Dalai Lama for his environmental leadership.

Ted Smith maintained a strong awareness of other political arenas in which workers and communities were disputing industrial pollution, whether locally throughout California, in other states, or at the level of federal regulatory agencies. From 1984 onward, acting as Executive Director of SVTC, Smith spoke to hundreds of environmental and community activist groups in the Bay Area, around the state, and increasingly internationally. Included in this series are news clippings from computer, electronics, and semiconductor industry trade periodicals. This series also contains Ted's correspondence with government officials like Congressman Norman Mineta and Assemblyman Lloyd Connelly, as well as members of the media and other concerned parties. Also well-documented is Smith's preparation for a 1985 public debate moderated by California Senator Allen Cranston, in which Smith was pitted against electronics industry representative Leo Kline, then director of the Industry Clean Water Task Force.