by The NRA made its first organizational change in the post-LaPierre era. Interim EVP Andrew Arulanadam announced this morning that a Hunting Division would be established within General Operations. It would join the existing Community Engagement, Competitions, Education and Training, and Law Enforcement divisions. The announcement was made in an email to staff.
Heading the new division will be Peter Churchbourne as Managing Director. He has been the director of the NRA’s Hunter’s Leadership Forum for the past five years and has been with the NRA since 2015. Prior to that, he had spent 17 years with Ducks Unlimited.
From Arulanadam’s letter, in part:
NRA Hunting will be dedicated to re-emphasizing the current hunting programs like YHEC, Online Hunter Education, Hunters for the Hungry, and the Wildlife Art Contest while also focusing on increasing the association’s visibility in its support for the American Hunter. We will also seek to expand our scope of victories and efforts -many that often go uncelebrated and unacknowledged. NRA Hunting will be a separate General Operations division joining Community Engagement, Competitions, Education and Training, and Law Enforcement.
Peter Churchbourne will lead this new division as the Managing Director of the NRA Hunting Division. He will also serve as the Managing Director of the Hunters’ Leadership Forum. Peter is a well-known advocate in the hunting community and a nine-year veteran of the NRA. Peter’s dual role will allow the NRA to be better positioned in the hunting program support and advocacy arena. Please join me in welcoming Peter to his new roles.
Churchbourne also currently serves as the Board Chair for the Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation. The foundation has a number of hunting related programs that seek, among other things, to communicate the role hunters and fishermen play in funding land, fish and wildlife conservation in America.
I don’t know the impetus that led Arulanadam to make Hunting a full division within General Operations. It could be an effort to increase NRA membership within the hunting community. As for Churchbourne, he seems like a decent choice to lead such a division. I am told he is solid on the Second Amendment by a friend who is a former NRA employee.
In a previous purge of staff years ago, NRA took Hunter Services from a division down to a department, under Education and Training. Lost a lot of good folks at that time.