The Story · Est. 1970s
Every venture, every reinvention, every mile. This is the full chart of a five-decade voyage, from a family darkroom to the helm of MyGuardian.
The Through-Line
Gentry's career resists the conventional narrative. It began in family businesses: developing 35mm film professionally at age ten, learning international trade and supply chains by fourteen. It grew into a corporate advertising career spanning Best Buy, Sears, Arnold Advertising, and Zoe Design, with agency and client relationships including Young & Rubicam, BBDO, Yamaha, BMW, and Federal Cartridge.
In the dot-com era he facilitated eight-figure web development projects at Event411.com and engineered the funding and successful exit of SmartShop, one of the first comparison shopping engines, proving the model by signing 435 affiliate partners simultaneously before asking investors for a dollar.
Then came twenty years of entertainment: producing for Viacom, MTV, A&E, TLC, Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Disney, award-winning independent films, a decade running the Artopia arts community in Los Angeles, and international event production across Las Vegas, China, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
Today he operates a portfolio of ventures unified by a single thesis, protecting, empowering, and sheltering people, anchored by MyGuardian Inc., an AI-powered civil rights protection platform born from a year spent traveling twenty states during the pandemic and the civil rights uprising of 2020.
The Journey
Developing 35mm film professionally at ten. Learning international trade and supply chain operations at fourteen. An early education in thinking through systems.
Art Director on Best Buy print advertising. Creative Manager at Sears, Roebuck and Company. Director of Development at Arnold Advertising. VP of Development at Zoe Design.
Facilitated eight-figure web development projects at Event411.com and engineered the funding and successful exit of SmartShop, one of the first comparison shopping engines, securing capital by signing 435 affiliate partners simultaneously to prove the model first.
Production for Viacom/MTV (Punk'd, NEXT, Date My Mom), A&E (Gene Simmons Family Jewels), TLC, Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Disney. Founded Artopia, a Los Angeles art gathering held every 60–90 days for a full decade. Co-founded GrindCo, producing events across Las Vegas, China, Thailand, and Hong Kong. Lived and filmed in Punta Banda, Mexico. Alongside the productions, a working metal-sculpture practice placed pieces in galleries and private collections.
Obtained a California General Contractor license, enabling Stanley Brothers LLC and, later, the boat restoration program behind Haus of Stanley.
A year on the road through COVID checkpoints and protest lines, the experiential origin of MyGuardian.
MyGuardian, Stratum Labs, Barbary Coast Marine, Haus of Stanley, and Stanley Brothers: a portfolio unified by one human-first thesis, drawing on everything the first four decades built.
The Witness Year · 2020–2021
In early 2020, Gentry wrapped a documentary about Jacque Fresco, a man who spent his life designing a better world. Weeks later, America shut down. Then George Floyd was killed. What followed was a year-long journey through twenty states, including Puerto Rico and Hawaii, moving through communities navigating a pandemic and a reckoning at the same time.
"He saw what happens when people face their most vulnerable moments with no documentation, no guidance, no witness, and no recourse. The mission is not positioning. It is memory."