As we kick off 2025, I asked our Voice of Leadership Panelists for their New Year's resolutions to share with you, the outdoor community.

Why share resolutions as leaders? It:

Inspires and Motivates Others: Leaders can inspire their teams to reflect on their goals and pursue growth by sharing their resolutions. It sets a tone of aspiration and progress for the year ahead.

Demonstrates Vulnerability and Authenticity: Sharing personal or professional resolutions shows leaders are human, striving for improvement like everyone else. This authenticity builds trust and strengthens connections with their teams.

Sets an Example of Growth Mindset: When leaders openly commit to growth, whether in skills, habits, or relationships, it reinforces the idea that continuous improvement is valuable and achievable.

Creates Accountability: Publicly sharing resolutions makes leaders more likely to follow through on their commitments. This accountability can also encourage employees to be open about their goals and progress.

Fosters a Culture of Transparency: Openly sharing resolutions aligns with creating a transparent and communicative workplace culture. It encourages others to share their aspirations and collaborate on achieving shared goals.

Encourages Team Alignment: Leaders' resolutions often reflect broader organizational goals. Sharing these resolutions helps align teams around common priorities and ensures everyone works toward shared success.

Celebrates Ambition and Positivity: Resolutions are about optimism and forward-thinking. Leaders sharing theirs can create a positive atmosphere, showing that challenges are opportunities to grow and succeed.

Rachel Barringer - Marketing & Digital Manager, Blaser Group

My 2025 New Year's Resolution for our industry is to help teach, offer, and provide knowledge and resources to parents and kids on how to effectively and efficiently treat and talk about the use of firearms with the youth.

I think a detrimental mistake parents make with their kids today is instead of openly talking about and teaching them proper gun safety, they just treat guns as "bad" and do not touch them.

When you tell a kid that they can't have something or not to touch something, they psychologically are more inclined to want to touch it, and if they know that they can't do so safely around their parents, they are more likely to do it when by themselves knowing they won't get in trouble for it if. Kids are naturally curious, so if they come across an opportunity to touch something they know they aren't supposed to but won't get caught doing so, nine times out of ten, they will do it!

Most gun accidents happen to teens and young adults with little to no experience with handling guns and even less safety training. I believe teaching kids how to properly handle, load, aim in a safe direction, and not be afraid of guns teaches them not only safe practice but also responsibility, confidence, and overall life skills they will know for the rest of their lives.

Allen Forkner - Vice President Public Relations & Brand Management - Gunbroker.Com

Resolution: The Hunting Industry needs to remember and share the fact that we hunt for enjoyment. If we could limit the usage of the following terms and images to showcase our sport:

TERMS:

• relentless

• alpha

• sharp tip of the spear

• misery

• pain

IMAGES:

• Painful mountain climbs

• Steely gazes

• Gasping for air

• Looks of grim determination

• Slogging through three feet of snow with a 50lb pack

For every single usage of the above, I resolve to use at least four of the following.

TERMS:

• Satisfaction

• Enjoyment

• Success

• Nature

IMAGES:

• Smiles

• The beauty of the outdoors

• Camaraderie

• Family

We get it. Some hunts are extreme, and we want to be aspirational. But for a growing number of hunters (and almost 100% of new or "could-be" hunters), a week-long fight to survive against Mother Nature just to anchor an elk isn't aspirational. It's a turn-off. Let's try to be better about reminding people that hunting is something we do to enjoy the experience, and for many, that's walking a pheasant field, sitting under a tree behind some decoys, or taking a decently mature buck on a slightly chilly day, or peeling the kids away from the Xbox. Not everyone is attracted to the idea of Navy SEAL Hell Week seeking the mother of all antlers.

Cassie Gasaway - Outdoor Content Creator & Freelance Writer

Become More Informed and Involved in the Political Process

The choices you make today affect the future. Many hunters, myself included, sometimes skip agency surveys, public hearings, and any other opportunities to provide feedback regarding hunting, wildlife, land management, and recreational opportunities. Unfortunately, government leaders will make policy decisions that affect hunting and conservation with or without input from stakeholders. The hunting community's lack of participation in public policy can have negative long-term consequences. Hunters must become more informed and involved in the political process to influence the most beneficial regulation changes and future laws.

Here are a few ways to get started:

1. Increase Your Awareness Regarding Local, State, and Federal Policy

Information is at our fingertips. Follow your city government and state wildlife agency's social media pages and check their websites to stay updated and informed on important happenings. You can also tune into trustworthy national news sources and hunting organizations to alert you of potential issues that affect hunting.

2. Attend Public Meetings and Hearings

When you know what's going on in your area regarding new laws and amendments, you can go to meetings and public hearings hosted by state or local representatives to actively voice your concerns and support regulations and policies affecting wildlife and hunting.

3. Call or Write to Your State Representatives on Important Issues

You can also share your thoughts by calling or writing letters to state and federal lawmakers. Help them understand where individual hunters stand on important outdoor-related issues or proposed legislation. Then, encourage them to take action or vote favorably on behalf of hunters. Visit your state wildlife agency's website to find a list of representatives in your state.

4. Vote!

You can vote favorably, too. Do your homework and research how candidates feel about hunting, public lands, and other conservation-related issues. Know who supports or opposes the issues to hunt and vote accordingly.

5. Complete State Wildlife Agency Surveys

State agencies often email hunters surveys to complete regarding their season and hunting satisfaction. They're easy to scroll by in a cluttered inbox, but sharing information regarding your season helps biologists and other state agency staff adjust hunting regulations to protect habitats and wildlife populations better, ensuring hunting opportunities exist for future generations.

Increased individual involvement in the political process benefits all. Doing your part to influence positive political changes within the hunting community ensures that our industry and favorite pastime will not only remain—but flourish—in the future.

Jeff Rawlinson - Vice President, National Archery in Schools Program

A New Year's Resolution to Give Every Child in America An Opportunity for Success

We are the industry that rose from the ashes of the 19th and 20th Centuries to burden ourselves to save the wildlife of North America. The industry that provided the people of this country with wild animals and wild places for them to roam. The industry that gave a nation its land ethic. This was accomplished because America was full of hunters, anglers, target shooters, and outdoor enthusiasts that had cared for so long.

Today, hunter numbers have dwindled uniformly across North America. Many efforts to reduce this decline have had positive impacts with some gains, but the reality is, more must be done to save these time-honored traditions. We need more people to start caring. Not in word alone, but people who will take to the field annually and purchase hunting and fishing licenses. People who are so passionate about hunting and shooting sports that they will purchase firearms, ammunition, and archery equipment each year, where 10-11% of each sale is directed to the US Fish and Wildlife Service, through a most profound excise tax (Pittman-Robertson) that has been in place since 1937, providing state fish and wildlife agencies with funding to use to support their conservation missions. For that to happen, Partners at all levels of the industry will need greater collaboration of efforts to provide consistent and data-supported pathways for new, current and lapsed hunter and recreational shooter successes. The science of hunting and shooting sports recruitment, retention and reactivation will need to continue to focus resources on avenues of scalable success.

One such program that has proven to bring new participants into the outdoors is the National Archery in the Schools Program. Since its inception in 2002, over 23.5 million students in America have been afforded the opportunity to learn the sport of archery. This has resulted in 1.3 million students annually participating in the in-school archery program that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of NASP student archers participating in new archery opportunities and taking to the field each year.

In 2024, NASP conducted a Student Survey which showed a clear indication as to the scalable impacts that this enormous program achieving thanks to the efforts of the program's state fish and wildlife coordinators along with school and industry partners. Student archers made it very clear that, "Because of NASP…"

• 50% of students tried archery for the first time

• 39% of students purchased a bow and another 26% want to

• 14% have bowhunted and another 25% want to

• 13% have small game hunted and another 22% want to

• 17% have hunted big game and another 19% want to

• 22% have encouraged other family members to try archery

Imagine the impacts to our industry if every child in American had these same opportunities. If every student had an in-school archery program from which to connect to pathways in the shooting sports and the great outdoors. Imagine every student learning archery in their school curriculum and then having an after-school program to look forward to. Imagine every student practicing archery with their school friends and having a school tournament to participate and shine in. Then, just try to imagine every child looking forward to being a part of a school archery team and having the pride of representing their school at a state tournament. Let's take it a step further and dream of every child having the potential of participating with thousands of other like-minded students at a national tournament. It becomes quite simple to thenimagine that not just a few hundred thousand but rather a few million students each year try bowhunting, small game hunting, big game hunting and bring even more friends with them to the great outdoors. Now that would be a most profound New Year's resolution for 2025. The pathway is complete. Let's make it happen!

Tom Ryle - Sales and Marketing Manager, State R3 Lead for Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Hunting is a lifestyle, not a sport.

I understand the industry vernacular of sport has deep roots, such as "sport hunting", "sportsman", and other uses of the word but data supports that hunting for sport far less accepted by the general public as hunting for food.

Hunting wild game to eat is legal, highly regulated, and generates billions of dollars to fund wildlife and habitat conservation. These points resonate well with the non-hunting public. When you have a personal one-on-one connection to the animals you eat - from field to table - you gain a level of deep reverence and respect unmatched by any other means of obtaining a meal. It's the most authentic and sustainable way to eat. And at a time when the evening news is litteredwith stories of e-coli, listeria, and other health concerns, the concept of having more control over your food source starts to sound more legitimate in today's modern world.

In a time where so many are quick to dismiss hunting as cruel, barbaric, and inhumane, the hunting industry could do a better job educating the public about the hunting lifestyle and how hunting is core to humankind's connection to the landscape, wild places, and wildlife. Shared hunting experiences bond people, feed people, and fund our nation's conservation efforts in perpetuity. Hunting and foraging is a way of life, not a sport. And when hunting experiences are shared with others, they have deep meaning and intrinsic value.

Taylor Schmitz - Director, Federal Relations, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation

As someone who grew up in a non-hunting family but was fortunate to be introduced to hunting by a friend, who is my closest friend today because of hunting, I want to make it more of a priority to introduce non-hunters to hunting. Given my background, I understand the importance and criticality of introducing folks to hunting and sharing the passion for conservation and the outdoors, as it truly can change the entire direction of someone's life, as was the case with me. If it weren't for the generosity of two individuals, I wouldn't be a hunter, nor would I be working for the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation. If I introduce three people to hunting over the next year, and they each introduce three people to hunting in the coming years, and the trend continues, we can have a large network of new hunters in short fashion.

Similarly, I want to prioritize introducing current hunters to new types of hunting. While our community prioritizes introducing non-hunters to hunting, we don't do nearly as good at providing new opportunities to current hunters.

2024-2025 Voice of Leadership Panelists

Rachel Barringer - Marketing & Digital Manager, Blaser Group

Allen Forkner - Vice President Public Relations & Brand Management - Gunbroker.Com

Cassie Gasaway - Outdoor Content Creator & Freelance Writer

Jeff Rawlinson - Vice President, National Archery in Schools Program

Tom Ryle - Sales and Marketing Manager, State R3 Lead for Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife

Taylor Schmitz - Director, Federal Relations, Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation

Facilitators

• Peter Churchbourne, Managing Director, NRA Hunting Division and Hunter Leadership Forum

• Jim Curcuruto, Executive Director, Outdoor Stewards of Conservation Foundation

• James "Jay" Pinsky, Editor, The Hunting Wire & Archery Wire

The Voice of Leadership Panel is an appointed group of outdoor industry leaders who have volunteered to contribute their voices on crucial hunting and outdoor recreation issues to inform, inspire, and educate participants within our community.