Charlie Smith retires as president and CEO of CountryMark after 17 years at the helm. CountryMark is a cooperative that supplies fuel and other products to members, who in turn serve Indiana farmers. CountryMark also operates an oil refinery in Mount Vernon, Ind.

Matt Smorch will become the new CountryMark president and CEO, effective Jan. 1. He joined CountryMark in 2001, working at the Mount Vernon refinery.

Smith, originally from northwest Indiana, graduated from Purdue University with an engineering degree. As an oil company engineer and later an international energy consultant, he traveled to more than 37 countries on five continents before joining CountryMark.

“Our employees are what makes this company great, and I have been honored to serve them since 2003,” Smith says. “I believed that with the right people, focused on safety, reliability and capacity improvements, that big things were possible for this small refining and logistics company. We’ve been able to do things that nobody thought we could.”

Under Smith’s leadership, CountryMark has returned more than $300 million in patronage refunds and invested more than $750 million into the business.

NEW LEADER: Matt Smorch, a CountryMark employee since 2001, assumes the reigns of leadership for the cooperative on Jan. 1.

Smorch, Carmel, Ind., is a chemical engineer by training. After moving up to and serving as refinery manager at Mount Vernon, he moved to Indianapolis and took a role in strategic planning for the company. In June 2018, Smorch was named vice president of refining and logistics. In that role, he had supply and marketing responsibilities, and returned to operations by leading both the CountryMark refinery and pipeline systems.

“I am excited to continue along a trajectory of success for CountryMark,” Smorch says. “We have great people, and our assets are in good shape and our balance sheet is strong.

“No matter what the future brings, we have the right people in place who follow our values — including excellence, improvement, innovation, integrity and reliability — to keep the company financially strong and fundamentally caring for our employees, customers and the cooperative system.”

Information supplied by CountryMark was used in this story.