A Conversation with Joanna Trimble Smith, Co-Founder & former CEO of Hearts for Hearing!

The Listening Brain

Joanna Trimble Smith was a co-founder and served as Chief Executive Officer from 2011 through March of 2024 of Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City, whose mission is to create life-changing opportunities for children and adults with hearing loss to listen for a lifetime. Joanna graduated from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and as a speech-language pathologist, she has spent 47 years improving the lives of children and adults with hearing loss or communication delays. Ms. Smith was the Executive Director of the Hearing Enrichment Language Program before co-founding Hearts for Hearing in 2003. The organization has grown from 18 employees to 165 in 2024 and the unique service delivery model developed at Hearts for Hearing has significantly improved the listening and spoken language outcomes for children and adults with hearing loss across the world. Ms. Smith is a Listening and Spoken Language Specialist certified as an Auditory Verbal Therapist and has been recognized by the Oklahoma Speech Language Hearing Association with the Gwen Cacy Award for outstanding clinical skills. She has co-authored a periodic column entitled “The Tot Ten” in the Hearing Journal and until her retirement served as one of the Co-Chairs for the CI-PATH initiative. In 2019, she was selected to receive the Pat Potts Visionary Award by the Oklahoma Center for Nonprofits.

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