Topic: International Firearms Examiner Training Academy-Update from Ron Smith

[Ron Smith]

Well hello to my AFTE friends and Happy Thanksgiving!  I have not posted on this forum for several months regarding my vision to create an International Firearms Examiner Training Academy.  As most of you know, I have been seeking out the right person for the position of Academy Director/Firearms Examiner for quite some time. I have interviewed several examiners looking for that special person to join our RS&A team.  That search is finally turning up some potential candidates that look promising at this point.  While I am continuing on with that screening process, I want to go ahead and send out a notice to all of you regarding laboratory equipment. Obviously we will need a lot of equipment and I will have to hit my pocket book pretty hard at some point.

That being said, I think it best for me to reach out first to the industry to see what equipment I might be able to acquire from existing firearms laboratories, both government and private. Here is my idea.  If you have firearms equipment that you can part with or you have already replaced, I am interested. Of course, working comparison scopes are my biggest need at the moment but any other firearms laboratory equipment would also be of interest to me.

For you retired firearms examiners who have completed your second career as a private firearms examiner, this would be a great place for your scopes, etc, to find a new home where they would be appreciated and used to train the new examiners coming into the field. Not much use for them in your basement or garage any longer. If you don't believe me, ask your wife.

For you government agencies, I am not asking for your equipment for free (although I will accept that option). I am interested in working closely with your agency to basically trade you for the scopes, etc. with anything from Proficiency Testing, Training Certificates to RS&A Training, Competency Testing, Pre-Employment Visual Acuity Testing,, or anything else you can find on our website that your agency is needing.(www.ronsmithandassociates.com) Negotiations of course are based upon the quantity and quality of your equipment.

As you may have noticed in the header to this posting, we are now an international training center. We accepted foreign students to our ongoing Latent Print Examiner Training Academy and it has worked out wonderfully. We certainly will be continuing this international effort.

Also, we are seeing that college graduates who have not found a job in the field are coming to our academy with the hopes of gaining employment after graduation. This has been great for them and they have been offered several positions from which to choose.  We certainly think this will be the case when we get the International Firearms Examiner Academy rolling.

Ok, so there you have it. I hope you see this as a win win situation. If your are interested then give me a call at 866-832-6772 or at ron@ronsmithandassociates.com.

Thanks for you time and Happy Thanksgiving.

May God Bless!

Ron Smith, President
Ron Smith & Associates, Inc.