About

About Firearms Business Academy

Built for People Who Care About This Industry

Most people do not enter the firearms industry because they studied a market and decided it looked profitable. We all have a story to tell.

Maybe it started on a hunting trip with a parent or grandparent. Maybe military service introduced you to a skill you wanted to master. Maybe you discovered you were good at teaching, repairing firearms, building products, or helping customers make better decisions.

Whatever brought you here, that passion is often what gets us into the industry.

The challenge is that passion and technical skill do not automatically teach us how to build a strong business.

You Know Your Craft. This Business Is a Different Skill.

You know what you know, running the business requires another set of skills.

You have to know what to sell, who to sell it to, how to price it, how to market it, how to control overhead, how to manage cash, and how to build systems that do not depend entirely on you. That is where Firearms Business Academy comes in.

Experience From Across the Firearms Industry

I have spent much of my professional life working in and around the firearms industry, not from one position, but from several.

Disabled combat veteran, serving with 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division from 1996–2005
Firearms instructor since 2006
Founded Trace Armory Group in 2010; returned to operating the company in 2023
Instructor with Sonoran Desert Institute since 2022
Experience in firearms manufacturing, regulatory compliance, and product management
Worked with BATFE, ITAR, EAR, and OSHA compliance
Developed and launched firearms-industry products and product categories
Experience with retail packaging, trade shows, buying groups, and manufacturer sales-rep support
Worked across wholesale, dealer, distributor, and direct-to-consumer channels
Since 2023, coached local gun stores and gunsmithing businesses on operations and business development

That experience has allowed me to see the firearms business from more than one side of the counter.

I have seen good products struggle because the marketing was wrong. I have seen technically skilled people wrestle with pricing, operations, and cash flow. And I have made enough mistakes in my own businesses to understand that knowing the craft and knowing the business are two very different things.

A Practical Plan for Building the Business

That experience became the foundation for the Firearms Business Operating System™.

FBOS organizes the business around six connected areas:

Products & Services → Marketing → Sales → Overhead & Operations → Cash Flow → Leadership

The goal is not to bury you in business theory. It is to give you a practical way to look at your company, identify what is weak, build what is missing, and make better decisions.

Even if your dream job is a part-time gig.

Because the Alternative Is Expensive

Without a system, it is easy to stay busy without building much of a business.

Classes can be full while margins stay thin. A gun store can have steady traffic while cash remains tight. A gunsmith can have more work than they can handle and still struggle to make the numbers work. A manufacturer can build a great product that never reaches the right customer.

Eventually, the business starts consuming the same passion that created it.

We want to help prevent that.

Build a Business That Lets You Keep Doing the Work

Success does not have to mean building the largest company in the industry.

It means building a business that supports the reason you came here in the first place.

Firearms Business Academy helps instructors, gunsmiths, retailers, manufacturers, and other firearms-industry professionals build stronger products, clearer marketing, better sales systems, disciplined operations, healthier cash flow, and better leadership.

Passion may be why you entered the firearms industry. Business discipline is what gives you the opportunity to stay in it.