I am proud to endorse Jacqueline “Jaci” Janes for the NRA Board of Directors. I have known Jaci since we both attended the Lucky Gunner Blogger Shoot all the way back in 2011. We have kept up with one another over the years whether it was running into one another at a NRA Annual Meeting, the SHOT Show, or another event.
When I began to seek out people who I thought could bring something to the Board of Directors to nominate, I was looking for not only reform-minded individuals but people who could bring multiple talents to the Board. Jaci is such an individual.
Obviously from her shirt you can tell she is a competitor. Participation in competition is just one thing the Nominating Committee is seeking.
Jaci goes well beyond that.
She was a volunteer for the NRA-ILA in Arizona for 14 years. Indeed, she was the co-recipient of the Jay M. Littlefield Memorial Volunteer of the Year Award for 2012 along with her partner Robert Messenger. She knows the grassroots and has helped organize it.
She served a 3-year term as a director of the Phoenix Rod & Gun Club including one year as membership director.
Jaci has been a marketing professional for over 30 years including 10 within the firearms industry. She is currently the Director of Marketing for Apex Tactical Specialties in Peoria, AZ. Along those lines, she knows social media and how to use it for marketing.
Jaci is running for the Board by both petition and is seeking nomination by the Nominating Committee. I encouraged her to do it both ways.
Her petition is below and I think you should sign it if you are a voting member of the NRA. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed.
As a reminder, a voting member is either a Life Member or a 5-year, continuous with no breaks, Annual Member.
Bear in mind that the Final Judgment mandated that the Nominating Committee should “endeavor” to find 20 additional candidates for the board who were qualified (5+ years as a Life Member and conflict free) and who had not served more than one term of office on the Board prior to 2022. In other words, Judge Cohen didn’t want to see the same old 25 or so people being nominated for the Board of Directors year after year.
Part of the nomination process approved by the court was for the Nominating Committee in consultation with the officers to develop a list of attributes that they were seeking in candidates for the Board. I reached out to Buz Mills who is chair of the Nominating Committee for this list of attributes. With his permission, here is the list that was developed.
The following attributes were identified as skills particularly desired over and above those normally evaluated:
Gap Analysis:
Insurance / risk management experience
Finance / Investment review
Competition Shooting
Membership organizational experience
Gun Collectors
Minorities (Hispanic, Black, Asian)
Younger individuals with business or program background
Other qualifications desired:
Ability to communicate effectively
High level of passion for the NRA and our advocacy
Availably to dedicate a great deal of time to the Association
Availability to commit to extensive travel
Great social media skills
Industry professionals
Media influencers
If you know of someone who be a great Board member, nominate them! Nominations have to be in to the Nominating Committee by August 3rd in order for nominees to fill out the requisite paperwork and for the Nominating Committee to evaluate it.
If you would like to run by run by petition, you need to request the petition (and nomination) package from the Secretary’s Office. I would send an email to Laura Green, the Assistant Secretary, at lgreen@nrahq.org to request it. She will send you the packet and will set up your online link to your petition.
As I have said before elsewhere, the Board will only be as good as those we have on the ballot. To be brutally honest, write-in candidates have little to no chance of being elected. I could be wrong but the only person I know of who got elected by way of a write-in vote was the late Charlton Heston and that was almost 30 years ago.
As I wrote earlier, Charlie Brown was part of our NRA 2.0 team running for the NRA Board of Directors last year. Thanks to two hurricanes and the lack of leeway in the Bylaws on the submission of petitions, his arrived a day or two late. He should have been on the regular ballot and should not have had to run as a write-in candidate.
He is again running as a petition candidate for the NRA Board and I have endorsed him. You can find a link to his petition here. He brings a wealth of management and marketing experience. Moreover, it is experience in managing and marketing a firearms company.
Frank Tait has assembled the first set of candidate biographies. This is for Ken Bowra, William Askins, and Jerry Kraus.
You can read them here. I have done thumbnails of the biographies and you can read them below.
Ken Bowra is a retired Major General (Army) who commanded special forces units at all levels. He then went on to the Department of Energy as well as a serving as a diplomat in the State Department. Along the way he amassed experience in running non-profits as the president of the Virginia War Museum Foundation and as a trustee of the Special Operations Association Foundation.
William Askins is a retired USMC officer who also had experience serving with the CIA’s Clandestine Services. If the name Askins rings a bell, it is because he is the son of Col. Charles Askins and grandson of Maj. Charles Askins. More importantly for our purposes, he was a participant in the Cincinnati Revolt of 1977 and went on to serve as Harlon Carter’s executive assistant. He also served as the Deputy Director of the NRA’s publication division.
Finally, Jerry Kraus has served as an ILA Volunteer Election Coordinator over a many year period. Currently a mortgage broker, he has over 30 years of experience in sales, finance, marketing, business strategy, and development. He is an avid marksman and hunter who both competes in events like IDPA and has hunted Africa and Alaska.
The NRA Bylaws (Art. VIII, Sec. 3(b)) state that all petition signatures must be received within 45 days after the Nominating Committee meets. With the Nominating Committee meeting on August 23, 2025, the cut-off date to submit petition signatures is October 7, 2025 or 85 days from now. The bylaws as they stand now have no provision for the extension of this date for force majure, hurricanes, or any other thing that would make it hard to get the signatures to the Office of the Secretary on time.
Click picture for link
The other deadline that is critical is August 3rd. This is the day by which names are to be submitted in nomination to the Nominating Committee for consideration. You can nominate a candidate for the Board of Directors online. You will need both their membership number and your own membership number along with addresses, etc. Just to be on the safe side, I think a conversation with the person you are nominating would be a good first step. He or she might have other commitments that would make serving on the Board a problem.
If running by petition, a candidate needs 0.5% of the number of participating voters in the prior year’s election. For 2026 this number is 363 which is one of the lowest on record. In the past, petitions were always on paper and each signature had to be verified by hand in the Office of the Secretary. However, as the New York court mandated in the fifth point of its Final Judgment, an online version is now available. I have signed a number of these already.
The one major limitation on obtaining signatures is that they must come from a voting member. A voting member is either a Life Member or an Annual Member with five years of continuous, unbroken membership. With many Annual Members dropping their membership due to their disgust over the excesses of Wayne and his coterie of friends, it is not as easy to find voting members as it was pre-2019. I and many of my fellow petition candidates certainly ran into this problem last year.
To run by petition, a candidate needs to request the petition (and nomination) package from the Secretary’s Office. I would send an email to Laura Green, the Assistant Secretary, at lgreen@nrahq.org to request it. She will send you the packet and will set up your online link to your petition.
Judge Cohen’s order in the Final Judgment specified that the Nominating Committee was to “endeavor to identify up to 20 additional candidates” who met the required qualifications (Life Member of 5 plus years) and who did not serve more than one term on the Board prior to 2022. Judge Cohen referred to these as “New Qualified Candidates”. His goal was to expand the pool of nominees on the ballot and to bring new people and new ideas to the Board of Directors. He had noted it seemed the same people were getting nominated and elected year after year.
2025 was a watershed year in that 14 Directors were elected who had never served on the Board in the past. New directors are either Chair or Vice-Chair of five committees including critical ones such as Finance and Elections. Moreover, new directors are a majority on the Audit Committee which is a committee of the Board under NY Non-Profit Corporation Law.
Enough about the logistics.
The Board will only be as good as those nominated and elected. We need good people with the dedication to both the Second Amendment and board governance to run. We don’t need ticket punchers or resume polishers. We have had enough of those in the past! It goes beyond showing up to Board meetings three times a year. We need hard workers who will do the committee work necessary to help rebuild this 154 year old organization.
I have reached out to Buz Mills who is the chair of the Nominating Committee for skills they are seeking. I will post his response here when I get it. I can say from my own perspective that candidates with management, marketing, and finance skills, experience in non-profit governance, grass roots advocacy, and social media skills are especially welcome. I would also say that younger candidates who can reach out to millennials and Gen Z to become members are doubly welcome.
Frank Tait has just published a list of reform candidates seeking signatures to be put on the 2026 NRA Board of Directors election ballot. Many were recruited by LtCol Robert Brown whose reform efforts got him pushed off the Board after his term ended. He was ignored by the Nominating Committee which was at the time still run by the Old Guard. I should note LtCol Brown is running, too.
Looking over the list, I see the names of many whom I know and trust to do the right thing if elected. I have endorsed Rob Beckman in June. Huey Laugesen of the Colorado State Shooting Association serves with me on the Membership Committee and is a breath of young fresh air. Charles Brown was one of two write-in candidates on the Elect A New NRA slate in the past election. Steve Schreiner is a long time Board member who has consistently been on the reform side. Randy Luth of Luth-AR was one of the first industry insiders to say enough is enough with regard to Wayne. I don’t know some of the rest but an endorsement by LtCol Brown and Frank Tait says everything that needs to be said.
As a reminder, to be eligible to sign the petitions you have to be a Life Member or an Annual Member with five years of continuous, unbroken membership. Each of these petition candidates will need a minimum of 363 valid signatures to be placed on the ballot.
One of the stumbling blocks to get on the ballot for NRA Board of Directors by petition was that it required the candidate to get signatures in ink on a paper petition. Judge Joel Cohen referred to this in the New York trial as “antiquated” and “20th Century”.
He was correct and he said in his Final Order that an online alternative must be offered. With the petition process opening at approximately 2pm on Saturday at the close of the Meeting of Members, candidates can now gather petition signatures either the old fashioned way on paper or through electronic signatures. They just need to send a request to NRA Secretary John Frazer for the petition packet and an online petition link. Just email Mr. Frazer at john.frazer@nrahq.org
My longtime friend and fellow Board member Amanda Suffecool agreed to be one of the trial candidates. Both the Complementary Spouse and I have signed her petition. It could not be easier as you can do it on a smart phone, a tablet, or a regular computer. It just asks for name, address, and membership number. Then you sign with your mouse or finger tip, hit submit, and it is done.
Here is Amanda’s petition. If you are a NRA Voting Member (life or five year continuous annual member), please sign!
My good friend Todd Vandermyde has decided to run again. He just barely missed being elected and we need people like Todd on the Board. I could really see him shaking up the Legislative Policy Committee given his decades of experience as a 2A lobbyist in the lion’s den of the Illinois General Assembly.
If you know of other reform minded activists who wish to run by petition, let them know how to obtain the link. I think this is a change that needed to come. One advantage to using the online petition is that candidates know how many signatures have been gathered and they know they are valid so long as the system accepts them. If they run into issues, they should contact the Office of the Secretary. The NRA’s records could have had the signer’s name misspelled.
One final note: Candidates will need 363 valid signatures to qualify for the ballot. According to the Bylaws Article VIII, Sec. 3(b), there is a limit of five candidates qualifying by petition per state. If more than five qualify, then it will be the top five in terms of numbers of signatures obtained.
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