Heather Smiley

Heather Smiley's mother drove a school bus, and her father served in the Air Force before working as an engineer and medical first responder.¹ She became the first person in her family to attend college, earning bachelor's and master's degrees at Central Michigan University.¹ Her master's in administration was awarded in 2001.² She is married and has two children.¹

Smiley spent more than 32 years at Ford before retiring, working across product development, strategy, customer service and analytics.¹ That career included both UAW and salaried positions, work in Europe and partnerships around the world.¹ Her community activities have included emergency preparedness, youth programs and volunteering for local charities.¹

Her current platform calls for balancing the federal budget, reducing spending she considers wasteful and supporting domestic manufacturing.³ She favors stronger border enforcement, restrictions on foreign land ownership and protection for domestic food production and cybersecurity.³ She supports reciprocal trade arrangements and limiting unnecessary government intervention in business.³

In her 2026 questionnaire, she backed more domestic oil refining capacity and greater competition among energy providers.⁴ She also called for AI privacy safeguards and job retraining where needed.⁴ On data centers, she favors guidelines protecting local control, environmental resources, energy reliability and consumer costs.⁴