Jen Appel, M.A.
Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, Founder
Ambassador Gentry O. Smith has joined Somewhere I Read as an advisor, bringing rare diplomatic authority and global leadership experience to our media and education initiative devoted to renewing the American conversation.
Hand-selected by President Barack Obama, Ambassador Smith was appointed Director of the Office of Foreign Missions at the U.S. Department of State, a position of extraordinary trust and influence at the center of America’s engagement with the world. In this role, he helped shape how the United States is represented, understood, and experienced by foreign governments and diplomatic communities, enforcing diplomatic privileges and immunities, ensuring compliance with bilateral protocols, and strengthening the treatment of U.S. missions and personnel abroad.
Over more than three decades of service, Ambassador Smith also served as the 11th Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, appointed by President Joe Biden and confirmed by the U.S. Senate. In that capacity, he led the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, the Department of State’s law enforcement and protective arm, overseeing security operations for more than 50,000 personnel across 270 diplomatic posts worldwide.
Reporting directly to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Ambassador Smith provided strategic counsel on global security challenges and operational imperatives that underpin U.S. foreign policy. In this role, he shepherded complex protective and security missions, ranging from providing 24/7 cybersecurity defense against sophisticated intrusion attempts to directing high-level dignitary protection operations, including safeguarding U.S. Secretaries of State, visiting world leaders, and foreign delegations during major international gatherings such as the United Nations General Assembly.
What distinguishes Ambassador Smith’s leadership is not simply where he has served, but how. Across cultures and continents, he has built trust where it is most difficult, mentored leaders under pressure, and upheld the principles that allow institutions, and democracies, to endure. His work reflects a belief that leadership is ultimately an act of stewardship, grounded in responsibility, discipline, and service.
Ambassador Smith’s operational portfolio has encompassed some of the most demanding global security challenges of recent decades. He directed security strategy during the evacuation of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan, supported the protection and relocation of diplomatic staff in high-threat environments, and helped manage security considerations related to the temporary closure and continued diplomatic engagement surrounding Ukraine and other conflict zones.
Throughout his career, Ambassador Smith has emphasized that diplomatic security is not an end in itself, but the essential foundation that allows diplomacy, negotiation, and international cooperation to occur. He has consistently framed security leadership as a balance of vigilance and restraint , protecting people and institutions while enabling thoughtful risk-taking in service of democratic values.
At Somewhere I Read, Ambassador Smith contributes this lived experience to a civic and cultural initiative committed to dialogue, historical truth, and democratic renewal. His voice helps anchor the project’s storytelling and education in real-world leadership, offering perspective on power, accountability, and the human dimensions of public service.
Dr. Larry Guerra, clinical psycologist
Jen Appel, Founder
Vision | Harvard-Trained Educator | Award-Winning Producer | Storytelling Strategist for National Renewal
Jen Appel founded Somewhere I Read to reclaim America’s identity - the one promised in our founding documents and echoed by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. when he declared:
“But…somewhere I read that the greatness of America is the right to protest for right.”
Through truth, beauty, and courage, Jen is uniting artists, political leaders, educators, veterans, technologists, and citizens to restore decency, dignity, and true patriotism to public life - and to ensure that We the People remain the driving force of this republic.
Her understanding of narrative was forged early and viscerally. Growing up with a front-row seat to the making of an American icon , as her eldest half-brother discovered, produced, and managed Bruce Springsteen, Jen witnessed firsthand how art can give voice to a nation’s soul. Standing in sold-out stadiums, she watched tens of thousands rise in unison, songs that celebrated and challenged, comforted and confronted, embodying what President John F. Kennedy once observed:
“If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and concern for justice make them so.”
Jen watched that truth unfold night after night. And she learned what it takes to hold a mirror up to a country without turning away.
Like Kennedy, like King, and like the artists who have carried America’s conscience through its hardest chapters, Jen believes a nation cannot flourish without its storytellers, nor can democracy survive without moral imagination. She believes we are being called to complete the original revolution, to realize, together, the full promise of America’s founding ideals through empathy, courage, and truth.
A Harvard-trained educator and seasoned producer, Jen has spent more than three decades teaching A.P. U.S. History, Government, and Entrepreneurship, while designing transformative curricula that bridge education, media, and civic responsibility. Her film work includes producing for Nickelodeon’s Blue’s Clues, Broken Lizard Productions, and Cataland Films, and she now leads Traitor: A Story of Patriots, a feature documentary and concert series exploring how music can once again help reawaken America’s spirit.
Earlier in her career, Jen served as Senior Communication & Pursuit Strategist at Ernst & Young, guiding Fortune 500 leaders in defining purpose, shaping narrative, and translating vision into measurable impact. That experience sharpened her understanding of how power moves, and how stories, when framed well, can either liberate or manipulate.
But Jen also recognizes a hard truth of the 21st century: storytelling alone is no longer enough.
In an age of surveillance capitalism, AI-driven influence, and platform-controlled speech, protecting democracy requires more than inspiration. It requires infrastructure.
Under Somewhere I Read, Jen is leading a movement that empowers citizens not only in spirit, but in systems - combining culture, education, and technology to ensure the people retain their voice, their privacy, and their power.
This is innovation with a heartbeat and a backbone — technology grounded in liberty.
Through Somewhere I Read, Jen is aligning what has been fragmented and amplifying what has long been silenced - building a unified cultural front committed to finishing what America’s founders, artists, and moral leaders began.
Because the fight for America’s future is not merely political. It is cultural, spiritual, technological, and deeply human.
And the only way to heal a divided nation is to tell a louder, braver, more honest story, and to secure the systems that carry it - together.
This, is a republic we intend to keep.
For more on Jen please follow her Substack and LinkedIn or visit her site.
United States Ambassador, Gentry Smith
Dr. Larry Guerra, Founder
Dr. Larry Guerra brings more than three decades of clinical, organizational, and advisory experience to Somewhere I Read at a moment when America is confronting not only political division, but a profound mental-health and relational crisis.
A New York State licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Guerra has spent his career working at the intersection of individual psychology, family systems, institutional dynamics, and conflict resolution. While widely respected for his long-standing private practice on Long Island’s North Shore, his work extends far beyond the therapy room; into boardrooms, international family offices, schools, courtrooms, and complex organizational environments where human behavior, power, and decision-making collide.
Dr. Guerra has advised international private family offices, facilitated negotiations between corporate entities, and supported senior leadership through high-stakes internal conflicts, restructurings, and moments of institutional strain. Known for his exceptional skill in internal business administration, organizational management, and mediation, he is frequently called upon as an expert witness and trusted consultant in matters requiring psychological insight, ethical judgment, and clear communication under pressure.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Guerra served as Director of Counseling Services at Friends Academy in Locust Valley, New York, where he led multidisciplinary teams, trained educators, and guided families through developmental, academic, and emotional challenges. He has also served as a clinical supervisor and treatment team leader at residential treatment facilities, working with vulnerable populations facing trauma, behavioral disorders, and systemic instability.
Clinically, Dr. Guerra specializes in child, adolescent, family, and adult development with deep expertise in anxiety and mood disorders, impulse-control challenges, aggression, social anxiety, life transitions, and the emotional complexities that accompany illness, aging, and change. His doctoral research focused on the cognitive-emotional factors influencing adolescent risk behavior, reflecting a career-long commitment to understanding how internal states shape external outcomes.
At Somewhere I Read, Dr. Guerra’s role is foundational. He helps ensure that the project’s cultural, educational, and technological efforts are grounded in psychological reality, not abstraction. In a time when fear, isolation, and unresolved trauma are driving polarization, his work reminds us that democracy cannot be healed without tending to the inner lives of the people who sustain it.
Dr. Guerra also champions innovative, human-centered approaches to healing, including the integration of emotional-support animals into therapeutic and community settings, further reinforcing the project’s belief that restoration happens through connection, dignity, and care - and also, a healing of our national land and all the creatures within it.
As Somewhere I Read advances its nonprofit initiatives, Dr. Guerra’s leadership helps bridge the gap between civic ideals and human capacity - ensuring that the call to unity, accountability, and renewal is not only aspirational, but psychologically sound and sustainably humane.