March 30, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Almost three years after the former chief financial officer of medical device maker Vante was fired for posting a YouTube video of himself criticizing Chick-Fil-A’s anti-gay policies, he says he still cannot find a job and that the move “destroyed his career.”
Adam Smith was the CFO of Tucson, Ariz.-based Vante until the summer of 2012, when he filmed himself berating a drive-through server about the company’s policies on gay marriage. He told ABC News this week that the move cost him his job that same day and that he hasn’t been able to find permanent work since.
“I got into work and the receptionist, the first thing, big eyes, ‘Adam, what did you do?’ ... she said, ‘The voicemail is completely full, and it’s full of bomb threats,’” Smith told ABC News’ “20/20.”
As a result, Smith said he lost his $200,000 a year job and the $1 million in stock options that came with it. “It was taken when I lost my employment,” he said.
Smith also told ABC that he wasn’t sure the viral video will ever go away. In it, he has some strong words for employees of the company—and Vante felt he behaved in a way that made it impossible for him to continue as CFO effectively.
“Chick-Fil-A is a hateful corporation,” Smith says in the video. “I don’t know how you live with yourself and work here. I don’t understand it. This is a horrible corporation with horrible values. You deserve better.”
Since then, Smith has had one job as a CFO, in Portland, Ore., but was fired two weeks into that stint when the company found out he was the same man from the viral video. Now he says he is honest with employers about the video throughout the interview process—but has not received any additional offers. It’s caused a lot of financial damage to himself, his wife and their four children, he said.
“I don’t regret the stand I took, but I regret… the way I talked to her,” he told “20/20.” As for new employers, he said he understands why they may be concerned. “I think people are scared,” Smith said. “I think people are scared that it could happen again.”
