Maryland native Paul Reed Smith, best known for his world-renown company based on Kent Island, PRS Guitars, has turned his understanding of sound and harmonics to create a new company that makes x-rays safer and more accurate. On April 13, he will bring his unique business acumen to Washington College as the speaker for the J.C. Jones Seminar in American Business, and to receive an honorary degree, Doctor of Public Service.

Sponsored by the Department of Business Management, the free, public event will take place at 4 p.m. in Decker Theatre of the Gibson Center for the Arts. A reception in the Underwood Lobby, sponsored by the Washington College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, will follow the event.  

Reed Smith is a musician, songwriter, founder, and managing general partner of Paul Reed Smith Guitars, and founder of Digital Harmonic LLC. The Bethesda native holds almost 100 registered and pending trademarks, several copyrights, and nearly two dozen patents. He also mentors high school students, and has played alongside artists from Carlos Santana—whose signature model guitar was designed and made by PRS—to Mark Tremonti.

Although until now he has probably been best known for PRS Guitars, his new venture, Digital Harmonic LLC, is revolutionizing x-ray technology with the patented Precision Measuring Matrix, which extracts and analyzes waveforms and signals across time, frequency, and amplitude to reveal information never seen before. Experts from Johns Hopkins Hospital and the U.S. Navy have partnered with Reed Smith to consider new ways to apply his company’s algorithms to their respective fields.

The James C. Jones, Jr. Seminar in American Business was endowed in 1978 by the George W. King Printing Company of Baltimore in memory of its former company president. Jimmy Jones, a 1947 graduate of Washington College, served on the Board of Visitors and Governors from 1974 until his death in 1978. In recognition of his work as a chairman of the Alumni Council, as chairman of the annual giving program, as president of the Baltimore Alumni Chapter and in numerous other voluntary capacities, he was presented with an Alumni Citation for outstanding service to Washington College in 1977