NEWS

All-Army Small Arms Championships Kick Off March 6

The All-Army Small Arms Championships kickoff on Thursday at Fort Benning, Georgia and run through March 15. The Army Long-Range Championships will then run March 16-18. Training and competitions are open to all Soldiers of all Army components, of any rank, with of any military occupational specialty, including West Point and college ROTC cadets. Approximately 200 Soldiers are expected to compete; currently, 125 competitors are pre-registered.

Air Rifle Olympic Team Set; Air Pistol Qualifiers Selected

The 2008 U.S. Olympic Team for Airgun has been determined following the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials- Shooting. Stephen Scherer (Billerica, Massachusetts) and Jason Parker (Omaha, Nebraska) qualified for Men’s Air Rifle, while Emily Caruso (Fairfield, Connecticut) qualified for the team in Women’s Air Rifle. Rebecca Snyder (Grand Junction,Colorado) and Jason Turner (Rochester, New York) both qualified in pistol.

April Showers May Mean Time to Protect Your Firearms

With gobbler seasons opening soon across the country and hunters heading afield after the elusive Tom Turkey, Ultra Bore Coat gives them one less thing to worry about. By simply coating the bore of a shotgun, the hunter will eliminate or drastically reduce plastic wad fouling in the bore as well as totally protect it from rust.

Shooting USA Features Hour-Long SHOT Show Special

This week, an hour long special episode of Shooting USA on the Outdoor Channel, an inside look at the dealers-only SHOT SHow in Las Vegas.

Ruger Number 1 Rifle Raises $25,000 for Olympic Shooting Team

A Ruger Number 1 Rifle brought $25,000 at auction during the Western Hunting & Conservation Expo in Salt Lake City, Utah, with proceeds benefitting the USA Shooting Team. Expo host and USA Shooting sponsor, the Wild Sheep Foundation, provided USAS with the fundraising opportunity to support the 2008 Olympic Shooting Team. Industry partners TALO Distributors, Ruger, Baron Engraving, Hardigg Storm Case and Hornady Manufacturing contributed to the auction item which included a one-of-a-kind engraved Ruger Number 1 rifle, travel case and ammunition.

MIT Champion Pistol Team to Defend Its Title at NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Matches

The National Rifle Association has announced that this year’s NRA Intercollegiate Pistol Championships will be held March 10-14 at Fort Benning, Georgia. Pistol team members from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) will be defending the NRA national championship title, which they won in last year’s team competition held at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

Legacy Sports Partners With Youth Shooting Sports Alliance

Legacy Sports will donate five dollars to the YSSA for each youth firearm sold during 2008. The offer includes all 10 models of Howa youth rifles, 2 Escort 20 gauge semiauto and two models of Escort youth 20 gauge pump shotguns.

Youth Shooting Essays Solicited

The Youth Shooting Sports Alliance (YSSA), Legacy Sports International, and Northwoods Adventures TV invite high school students from across the nation to write an original essay of less than 1,000 words that describes “The Importance of Shooting Sports to my Family.”

Correcting A Typo

In our Friday, February 29 edition, we accidentally garbled a web address in the Brownell's Business Advantage story. The correct web address for information or signup is: www.BrownellsBusinessAdvantage.com. Our error.

FEATURE

A Few Minutes With: Doug Painter

I confess being surprised at the release from the National Shooting Sports Foundation saying that Doug Painter, President and CEO, had requested a “change of duties.” After too-many years studying May Day photos from the Kremlin (boy, that dates me, doesn’t it?) where people are positioned in a photo or an organization has meaning to me. Likewise, too-many years in corporate America also taught me releases occasionally say “requested” when they mean “reassigned” or worse.

So, I asked to talk with Doug Painter. When he called me, yesterday morning, we spent a few minutes talking. Afterwards, instead of being consumed with curiosity at the obvious question (who’s going to get your old job), I realized that might not be the big story coming out of this announcement. Doug Painter sounded like a guy who was really, really energized at the opportunity to become “NSSF’s Senior Advisor and Trade Liaison” and to “focus his efforts in delivering NSSF’s message and in working to continue to build NSSF’s partnerships in the hunting and shooting sports community.”

Here’s some of that conversation.

SW: So, what’s your feeling after the announcement?

Painter: I’m excited. Think about it for a while. I get to work directly on working with our partners with the goal of growing the sport. And to do that, I get to see the good ideas that are working to grow the industry at the grassroots level – that’s where the real growth comes from.

SW: Expand the partnerships thing. Is that what you want to be remembered for?

Painter: I think that it’s important that every program at the NSSF today isn’t based solely on NSSF. It’s based on a relationship with a partner. We’ve partnered with our great friends at the NRA to grow their membership. Families Afield with the NWTF and US Sportsman’s Alliance, and the program to help people find places to hunt with more than thirty state wildlife agencies. Part of my new role will be working on similar programs – grant based programs – for shooting facilities. Assistance with funding to help range operators implement some of their innovative ideas and then recognizing those effective grassroots programs by telling others ‘look what Harry’s doing at his range’ to grow everything.

SW: So you’re going from administrator to incubator?

Painter: (Laughing) I hadn’t thought of it that way, but for example, Don Turner at the Ben Avery shooting facility outside Phoenix had a great idea. He went to ever firearms retailer in his area and gave them a slip of paper to give every newcomer to shooting. It was a free introductory session with one of Ben Avery’s instructors. He always had an instructor available, and he told me that program brought people to the range for the first time – and the assistance they got brought a huge number of them back. He created what I like to call an ‘I could have had a V-8 moment’- a point when a good idea gets put to work and everyone looking at it realizes it could work for them, too.

Sharing those moments and helping create more of them is my new job.

SW: At the grassroots level?

Painter: Absolutely. We want to build opportunities by helping local operators. They’re all worried about the money to renovate or pave their parking lots or whatever; we are there to help relieve the financial costs.

SW: You mentioned the partnership with the NRA, will your new role be more like the one Wayne LaPierre has there, the front guy?

Painter: That’s a good analogy; I’ll be available to help put a perspective on stories from our end of the river.

SW: So a new TV show for you?

Painter: (Laughing) No. But I am going to be available to producers who want to get the industry perspective on stories. I don’t have any TV shows planned.

SW: So when does all this change happen? When is it likely there will be an announcement on a new CEO?

Painter: I’d think within the month. That’s up to the Board.

SW: Is one of the key challenges of shooting and firearms what I’d call evangelism?

Painter: Yes. Our First Shots program is a great illustration. It brings new people into shooting and reaches out to them through their local media. It tells them about the opportunity in places where they already look for information. After all, whenever ‘we’ introduce anyone to shooting, it’s really rare they look at you and say ‘that was no fun at all.’ We are barking up the right trees, we just need to do more barking. That’s part of my new role and it has me excited.

SW: So your personal feelings on this change, you’ve been in your job for a while.

Painter: I’m ecstatic. I get to do what I love, and be involved in what I think our core job really is. If we get together we can make progress. But if we sit around and think ‘I hope it will get better’ it won’t, that will get us in trouble. It’s not going to get any easier in the future.”

SW: Thanks, Doug.

Painter: Certainly.

--Jim Shepherd