Originally from Georgia, Allexis Smith is a veteran of the world’s finest Navy, where she served for three and a half years on the USS GW Bush as a Master at Arms. She is currently a military spouse married to childhood sweetheart. She’s also earning her master’s in mass communications with a concentration in broadcast journalism. Smith ultimately wants to make documentaries about marginalized communities and veteran communities and then possibly work in government using these stories to repair the atrocities against those populations. Using the stories she tells, she wants to get laws passed to reform programs affecting veterans.

Smith joined the Navy because she couldn’t afford college; school was important in her life. She has always loved learning and has never really stopped; she plans on eventually earning her doctorate. In the Navy, she worked on the security reaction force as a hostage negotiator, did tactical team movements, conducted team building exercises, and was a fi eld training officer. During that time, she learned what it meant to work on a team and to not focus on the mission of self, but the entire collective.

One of her biggest passions now is building a collective-based organization where the focus isn’t on the mission for one person, but something that will be for the greater good of everyone and benefit everyone. Additionally, because of her experiences in the military, she carries a focus now on mental health and taking control of mental health by working on coping mechanism, coping strategies, and reintegrating without letting mental health illnesses drive who you are.