Robert Mensinger Archives -

Unprofessional? Hardly

I wrote back in March about the promotion that Colleen Sterner received in the NRA’s Office of Advancement. As a refresher, she is the niece of disgraced former NRA CEO and EVP Wayne LaPierre who mere days after he retired was appointed to Director of Events for Advancement with a six-figure salary. That post stirred some angst within the NRA’s PR department.

There have been a number of filings in recent days in the bench phase of the New York Attorney General’s suit against the NRA. These filings include both witness lists and exhibits that the parties want to bring to the attention of Judge Joel Cohen. One that caught my eye was by Noah Peters of Brewer, Attorneys and Counselors, on behalf of the NRA. Exhibit 38 was a string of emails involving Sterner, NRA CFO Sonya Rowling, and Bob Mensinger who at the time had not yet been named the NRA’s Chief Compliance Officer.

NRA Exhibit 38 by jpr9954 on Scribd

If you read through the string of emails starting on the last page and going to the top, you see it involves a review of a contract for an event to be held at the 2024 NRA Annual Meeting. Sterner was pushing to get a contract approved quickly by Sonya Rowling. Unfortunately for her, it appears Sterner did an incomplete job that was not in compliance with the NRA’s Procurement Policy for which Rowling called her out.

Like a spoiled child who finally gets disciplined, Sterner threw a fit and complained about the response to both then Interim EVP Andrew Arulanandam and Mensinger as head of compliance.

Andrew and Bob,
See Sonya Rowling’s unprofessional email below. I can’t believe I am being viciously retaliated against based on who my uncle is and Sonya’s disdain for him. Financial Services Division, under the leadership of Rowling, has constantly moved the goal post for NRA’s contract processes.
Colleen Sterner

I would hardly call Rowling’s email “unprofessional”. I see it as the response of someone who knows the loose ways of the past are over and is perhaps a little frustrated over having to continuously correct the errors of those who have not realized this yet. I will say that Mensinger’s response was quite diplomatic as he politely says in so many words “not my problem”.

Of course, Sterner is not satisfied with that. It ends with a huffy statement about how she is working on “12 events”, the contract review is “old and entirely vague”, and they are moving the goal posts on her.

I would say that this is a prime example of the Peter Principle in action except that Sterner’s promotion to Director of Events for Advancement happened long after she had reached her level of incompetence. That may sound harsh but members of the NRA have a right to expect that people are hired and promoted based upon their competency and not their family ties.

My 2024 NRA Ballots

Here are my ballots for the 2024 NRA Board of Director election and for the bylaw change.

Now to explain my votes. It should go without saying that I support the Four for Reform. I signed and promoted their petitions to be on the ballot as well as have supported them here. I would love it if they ended up as the top four winning candidates.

I would have voted for Owen Buz Mills except that he told Jeff Knox that he wanted people to bullet vote for the Four for Reform. As to why I added Rick Ector as the fifth candidate, his “missionary work” in Detroit in which he has introduced thousands of women is worthy of recognition. Just as importantly, he bucked the Old Guard aka “The Cabal” when he endorsed Wade Callender to be the next Executive VP of the NRA. These two factors were why I added Rick to the list of candidates for whom I voted.

While I consider the bylaw change to add a Chief Compliance Officer independent of the EVP as closing the barn doors after the horses have escaped, it is a reform in the right direction. I worked for 25 years in the financial services industry and we always had a Chief Compliance Officer. There were times I thought they were a bit “nit-picky” but their goal was to protect both the company and the client. If I had questions on something such as a political contribution, I knew I could reach out to them for advice on the best way to handle it.

While the appointment of a Chief Compliance Officer must wait until the vote is tallied, it appears that a candidate has been hired in anticipation of the bylaw change. Robert Mensinger was hired by the NRA in September 2023 as a Managing Director. He holds a law degree, has had an extensive career as a compliance and business integrity officer, and spent almost 25 years working as a Special Agent/Criminal Investigator for the Small Business Administration, Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Treasury Department. My only reservation about Mensinger is that he was selected for his present job by Wayne LaPierre upon the advice and counsel of Bill Brewer. Other than that, he seems ideal for the job. Only time will tell if I was worried about nothing which is my actual hope.

UPDATE: This is just a reminder that you should vote by NAME and not by NUMBER. There are 5 or so different ballots and the order of the names varies. It is randomized as a security measure.