In 1999 I designed the Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort. My design was simple in its Mission Statement: design, build and operate the most advanced reality based shooting facility in the World that would be used by everyone from Members of the Resort to armed professionals. I could not get any help from anyone in the “firearms industry”; I asked for guidance from the National Rifle Association, to Glock and finally even ammunition manufacturers such as Winchester Ammunition, no one had any advice. I contacted other “shooting industry professionals” on the training and operational end including Gunsite and Massad Ayoob, but no one had any advice for what I wanted to build, nor did anyone want to be involved. So I did what any professional developer would do, I built what I knew would work.
 
The Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort was designed in conjunction with architects, engineers, and a physics professor and through trial and error to make it the “safest indoor pistol facility in the world” according to the NRA Inspector. The reality based scenario shoot-house mazes were all designed by me from my 14 years of experiences working as an armed Security Professional from places ranging from Hollywood and East Los Angeles to Warsaw Poland. I used “unconventional” construction for the entire facility and it worked, we opened the Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort in July of 2000.
 
When we opened the Shooting Club I became the Director of Shooting Operations. I have been teaching shooting since 1983 and by the summer of 2000 I was doing so again. 9/11 changed some of the dynamics of the Shooting Club. After the tragic events of 9/11, the development of Elk Mountain Resort was stopped to see what was going to happen to World’s economy and the economy of the United States’ Travel Industry in particular; it was at this point that I contacted Executive Security International to see if they would want to train at the Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort.
 

 
 
ESI took advantage of my invitation to greatly expand on their shooting program that is the culmination of their two years academic study plus fifteen day live-in practical training and examination in order to become one of their Certified Protection Specialists. During one of ESI’s shooting programs at Elk Mountain Resort’s Shooting Club I was introduced to Rob Pincus.
 
Rob and I spoke a few times during his participation with ESI and then subsequently when he wrote articles about ESI’s shooting program for SWAT Magazine. I realized that Rob was the type of Director of Shooting Operations I was looking for. I was not looking to have the Best Shooting Club in the World offer “shooting 101”, “basic pistol” and so on; from all of my years of instructing everything from pistol shooting to clay shooting to martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, I knew that you needed a basic premise of safety first, but that everything that followed was going to be dictated by the students themselves. I had experienced the fact that you cannot teach a housewife who has never held a firearm the same things that you teach a 20 year Law Enforcement veteran or the other way around, it s unfair to either; this was how Rob and I agreed on a philosophical basis.
 
Rob came on board and immediately showed his passion for what we were building at Elk Mountain Resort while at the same time finding the best common denominators for teaching firearms skills. Rob and I are both NRA Instructors, but we both agreed that the “old school system” of two hours of talk and two minutes of shooting did not get people comfortable, confident or in fact improve their safety; what I had learned after years of trial and error was the same thing that Rob Pincus had learned: if you want people to learn to shoot have them press a trigger. During the first 18 months of operations at what had become the Valhalla Shooting Club at Elk Mountain Resort, Rob’s passion for teaching had shown itself through his proficiency for teaching everyone from the San Miguel County Sheriffs, to the Special Forces of Tenth Group to eight year old children, and everyone in between.
 
Rob’s practical experiences with these types of students got his teaching-mind running and helped guide the evolution of the Valhalla Training Center.
 

 
Rob never lost sight of the goal and original Mission Statement of having the Shooting Club, Valhalla, at Elk Mountain Resort become the World’s most exclusive amenity for the Members at the Resort, while at the same time taking advantage of the top Indoor Shooting Facility in the World to create and then expand and ultimately define his Combat Focus Training System. As the Owners of the Resort we supported his efforts as well as recognized the influence that his teaching was making on the War on Terror and taking armed professionals and civilians and making them better prepared in the event that a disaster of any type would happen.
 
Rob Pincus took his position as the Director of Shooting Operations at Elk Mountain Resort and helped not only the Resort become the Top Resort in the United States and one of the Top Ten in the World, but he also made the Valhalla Training Center the most progressive reality based training facility in the World for Military, Law Enforcement and Security Professionals as well as for the Club Members and civilians. Rob Pincus’ Combat Focus System was designed and proven to be efficient and effective for anyone interested in defending themselves or someone else with a firearm whether in the field or a home.
 
In the last year Elk Mountain Resort’s Owners realized that we were functionally behind on the original Mission Statement for the Resort and the Shooting Club in that we were not selling enough Memberships. Our commitment to our current and future Members as well as the overall success of the Resort is our focus; at the same time it has become very obvious that Rob Pincus’ Combat Focus System needs to be taught World-wide and that limiting his training to one location at a World Class Resort is unfair to those who need the training, but who cannot come to Elk Mountain Resort. As the Owners of Valhalla we have looked at everything that Rob has done for us and our overall operations, not just at Valhalla, but with the Resort as well, and we are grateful that we had the opportunity to have had his dedication and enthusiasm that has helped us reach so many of our goal-sets. We are also glad that we could have created a venue at Valhalla for Rob to be able to design his training system to a point that it is now not just a “shooting 101” program, but rather a training system that can be utilized effectively and efficiently by anyone and everyone and is being sought after by the U.S. Military, Law Enforcement Agencies and European Professionals.
 

 
In meeting with Rob over the last week we have all agreed that the evolution of the Valhalla Training Center needs to be more accessible to everyone World-wide, this cannot be done by just offering a few off-site courses per year. It is too selfish of Valhalla at Elk Mountain Resort to keep Rob Pincus teaching his Combat Focus System only to the Resort Members and Guests, so Rob has come to the point in his career that he and I spoke about five years ago during our initial negotiations, this is the time for us to thank him, wish him the best and support his desire to continue on his path as a Tactical Instructor and Professional and for us to be proud as a Corporation that we helped him attain his goals while thanking him for his dedication to our goals as a Resort Membership Club.
 
Valhalla is never going to back off of our Mission Statement that we opened with in 2000, and we are still going to be offering the only Training and Recreational Shooting Facility of its kind in the World to our Resort Members and Guests; as we do so we will be watching proudly as Rob Pincus continues on his quest to continue to develop and create training systems and teach World-wide to anyone who wants to become more efficient, effective and better prepared for what the World has to offer.
 
Thank you Rob and Good Luck!
 
Thomas S. Forman
V.P. Tavitac
 

 
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Rob Pincus’ letter to the Mr. Forman an the staff of Elk Mountain Resort and The Valhalla Shooting Club:
 
Mr. Forman & all Elk Mountain Resort and Valhalla Shooting Club Staff,
 
Thank you for the opportunities and support over the past 4 years. It should be obvious that I am extraordinarily proud of the accomplishments of Elk Mountain Resort and The Valhalla Shooting Club & Training Center, but I am also especially proud of the developments, accomplishments and efforts of the staff members that have been part of the resort and Valhalla over the past year. We have faced many challenges, not the least of which was meeting the diverse requrements of our clientele. Throughout all of the difficulties, challenges, successes and celebratory moments, it was always clear that Elk Mountain Resort and Valhalla would be so successful that the existence of a "Training Center" serving the types and numbers of people from around the world that need or desire the type of training that we have provided at the site was not going to be possible forever. I cannot fully express the level of appreciation and respect I have for Mr. Forman and his family for the opportunity to inherit the legacy of the training programs developed and taught over the past 4 years at Valhalla into my own company and move forward while The Valhalla Shooting Club and Elk Mountain Resort themselves drive forward to obtain their specific goals.
 
I have never had a doubt that Elk Mountain Resort was destined for success with Valhalla as a part of what makes it unique. I will forever be grateful for the opportunity that I had to play a role in the projects. Of course, I will continue to support Jeremiah and John in their roles at Valhalla and admire their dedication to continue along the path outlined by Mr. Forman.
 
I wish you all the best and pledge my continuing support to the projects. My email and phone numbers will remain the same and I invite any of you to contact me at any time, if I may be of service.
 

Thank you again.
 
-Rob Pincus
-Director of Operations
Valhalla Shooting Club & Training Center, 7/03-12/07.