I imported a model into Houdini that was exported from Maya using BgeoWriter plugin. Not sure why, but when I switch to the smooth shaded mode, the model appears as if no default light was hitting it- completely black. Is there a way to fix it? Thanks.

Sounds like the point normals are all messed up. Try blasting them away or creating new ones.

you might be right.
what would be the best way of doing it? is there a operator to reverse normals direction?

Put down a Point SOP and set it to Add Normals to create new ones or use an Attribute SOP to delete existing ones.

sweet!!! I used Point and selected No Normal, that seems to fix it, although can it create problems somewhere down the road?