Meet Glenn Towery

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Glenn Towery. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Glenn below.

Hi Glenn, you’ve got such an interesting story, but before we jump into that, let’s first talk about a topic near and dear to us – generosity. We think success, happiness and wellbeing depends on authentic generosity and empathy and so we’d love to hear about how you become such a generous person – where do you think your generosity comes from?

All of my past expriences in life

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

My Name is Glenn Towery. I am a Vietnam Combat veteran of the United States Navy. Although I was born in El Paso, Texas in the Army hospital in 1952 where my father Stonewall Towery was stationed, I was raised in Los Angeles, California, I initially arrived back in Texas in 2013 with my wife Juanita, a published artist, who was from Houston, Texas. We moved back to be closer to her siblings and for me to be able to seek a career as a filmmaker here. Juanita was the youngest of her family of 10 siblings and they were beginning to transition to the other side and she yearned to spend time with them before they passed. I had earned a Bachelors of Art Degree in 1997 as a Cinema major who minored in Television Broadcast Technology, I graduated the Valedictorian of my college, however, in 1997 I wrote, directed and produced my first feature project as an undergraduate project entitled “FREQUENCY”.

Shortly before we left Los Angeles, California, a veteran that I was in a VA program for people with severe PTSD committed suicide. It was a big wake up call for all of us in that PRRC VA program. So before I did anything else after arriving in Texas, I created the Veterans Suicide Prevention Channel (VSPChannel). In theory it would be a channel where veterans could visit and get therapy intermixed with entertainment and information from the comfort of their own home or any device that could access the internet. After that first channel opened on our website in 2014, it garnered more than a million views in less than a year and caught the attention of the Department of Texas VFW. I was introduced to the state of Texas asst. Adjutant at the time, Dan West (Dan West is now the National Adjutant of the VFW). Dan and I became associates and friends. I qualified because I am a Vietnam Combat veteran, to join the VFW so I joined. It was after that Dan encouraged me to start a nonprofit organization and eventually introduced me to John Spahr, the 2013 Texas State Commander of the VFW. I had never started a nonprofit so John Spahr showed me how.

In 2015, the Veterans Suicide Prevention Channel, (VSPChannel) became an official 501c3 nonprofit organization with myself as the CEO, John Sparh as the Asst. Chair, and my wife Juanita Cole Towery, as the Secretary of the organization. We have been serving veterans since that auspicious date. In 2016, the company that carried our website channel went out of business so the VSPChannel opened up a new ROKU television channel that we renamed the Veterans Arts and Wellness Network a stand alone channel that was its own website: https://veteransartsandwellnessnetwork.org/watch-live/

In 2017 the VSPChannel leadership (Board of Directors) had a desire to become more than simply a channel. We needed an outreach program. In 2012 I became a National Gold Medalist in the Department of Veterans Affairs National Art Festival Program. It was a wonderful experience, so I thought we should add an art program to our VSPChannel for veterans and their family members. That year we created the Austin Veteran Arts Festival (AVAFEST) and held our first festival in downtown Austin on November 15, 2018. Our festival motto became: “USING THE ARTS TO HELP SAVE VETERANS AND IMPROVE THEIR LIVES” This year we will be producing the 7th annual AVAFEST festival, The festival is a month long series of artistic events and sports tournaments created for participation by veterans and their family members. The events are mostly FREE. We also invite service members who are presently serving to attend and participate in our AVAFEST events, Here is a link to our website: www.avafest.org

Last year I turned 72 years old, I decided that I still have time to revise my career as a filmmaker. In 2023 I wrote TRANSITION CONDITION the first pilot for a television series about healing veterans in American history. It won an award at the Los Angeles International Screenplay Competition that same year, so this year I directed a scene from the pilot script as a trailer to be used to raise funds to shoot the pilot episode and first season of 10 shows. This project is not being produced under our nonprofit organization, but my LLC. FAIRY GODBROTHER PRODUCTIONS & FILM COMPANY, LLC. Find out more about this project by visiting our production website at: www.mission-transition-condition.com

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think the three most important qualities and skills or areas of my knowldge that were mos impactful were derived from my own personal expreinces of my struggle with PTSD. First of all I have compassion for veterans that suffer with this disorder because I have suffered with it since I was medically evacuated from Vietnam in Octobr of 1972. Number one, I would say, has to be COMPASSION, not only for others but for myself.

NUMBER 2: Awareness, but awaernss must be fed with knowledge. You cannot become awar of a problm or situation without learning that it exists, why it exists and formulating a plan to try to alleviate that situation.

Number 3: A CALL TO ACTION, starts inside of you and each individual and also requires a plan of action.

If you knew you only had a decade of life left, how would you spend that decade?

I would spend that decade making films that both entertain and inform people. I have wanted to become a filmmaker for more than 50 years now and going into a theater incognito to see one of my own film creations would be the absolute highlight of my life. I have 3 projects that I have written as feature length screenplays that I would like to direct and produce into blockbuster motion pictures and I know that I love doing.

I. HITCHHIKE FOR LOVE – A romantic comedy about a hip -hop star who is reduced to hitchhiking to save his relationship with the woman he loves over nignt.

2. STARFUNK and the ASTRAL PIONEERS – A story about a swashbuckling FUNK band from a far off region in outer space that uses a living musically powered spaceship an Funk Music as a power to save the universe from a terrible evil that threatens to destroy all life in the universe.

3. REST IN PEACE: A haunting in the hood that takes place in he late 1980’s during the time of the Crack Cocaine epidemic in America, It’s the story of redemption and a ghosts perserverance to save someone he loves from the otherside,

The 4th project is a television series for veterans MISSION: TRANSITION CONDITION. I feel that it is shameful that there has never been a television series about healing veterans in American history and I hope to be able to rectify that soon: www.mission-transition-condition.com

Contact Info:

• Website: www.mission-transition-condition.com, www.vspchannel.vet, www.avafst.org, https://veteransartsandwellnessnetwork.org, starfukmovie.com
• Instagram: @avafestvets
• Facebook: www.facebook/gtowery1
• Twitter: https://x.com/AVAFESTHEALVETS
• Youtube: @avafest9422