Women-Led Organizations

3 Stewards Of The Industry Speak

Written By Carolee Anita Boyles

2021

The YSSA’s focus is to recruit and retain new shooters through its support of youth shooting programs across
the country. Thanks to generous industry partners, the YSSA was able to engage with 22,000 kids last year.

Over the past 30 or so years, an increasing number of women have moved into positions of leadership in the shooting sports industry. Some of these women are celebrities, and represent the “face” of women in the industry. Others, however, are less visible to the public at large, and are part of the industry’s backbone here in 2021.

Stephanie Zanders — Zanders Sporting Goods

Stephanie Zanders is president and co-owner of Zanders Sporting Goods in Sparta, Ill. Zanders’ grandfather was a fur buyer, trapper, commercial fisherman and farmer who started trading a few guns in the late 1950s and early 1960s. This casual trade in firearms morphed into a retail business in 1962, which then developed into a regional wholesale distribution business in the 1980s. The company continued to grow, and today ships firearms and other sporting goods throughout the U.S.

Stephanie’s father and aunt Glenda owned the company as it grew through the 1980s and 1990s; another aunt, Kathy, joined the company during this time as well. Eight years ago, her father passed down the majority of his interest in the company to his daughters, and retired completely four years later. At this point, Zanders became a completely women-owned company.

Stephanie is in the process of buying out Kathy’s interest in the company, which will then put her and sisters, Jill Zanders-Henslee and Christine Zanders-Cox, at the helm. The sisters will share the responsibility for Zanders as part of an overall management team that will also include Herb Seeger, company CIO and Stephanie’s fiancé, and several company executives.

Stephanie started working at the company in high school. In 1992 she officially joined the family business, working in the accounting department. Over the next few years she served in a variety of positions including warehouse manager, sales rep, customer service rep and human resources director.

“The warehouse was my passion,” Zanders said. “I loved the technology, and thinking about what we could do to make things more efficient. The technology of automation really intrigued me.”

When Stephanie moved up to general manager, she had the opportunity to implement some of her ideas. In 2010, she moved the company to a new 72,000 sq. ft. facility located in Sparta, and introduced a complete supply-chain management solution to fully automate the warehouse distribution center. The company continued to grow, and in 2015, she began an expansion project doubling the facility from 72,000 to 144,000 sq. ft.; new automation techniques further increased efficiency and improved accuracy.

Stephanie continues to manage the day-to-day operations of Zanders Sporting Goods as president/COO and co-owner. Over the next few years, she hopes to see the company continue to be strong and healthy.

“I feel like we’re in a really good place with employees and staff, and I think we have a really good rapport with our manufacturers,” she stated. “We pride ourselves on taking care of our customers and consider them partners the same way we do our vendors.”

Cyndi Flannigan — YSSA

Cyndi Flannigan went to business school to be a medical secretary, but then interviewed at Hornady Manufacturing where she started as a receptionist in 1976. After the 1981 plane accident in which company founder Joyce Hornady and several other company executives were killed, she became the national sales manager; she stayed at Hornady for more than 17 years.

In 1993, Flannigan took a job as director of sales at Leupold & Stevens, where she stayed for 18 years. Then she had another opportunity when Walther Arms opened offices in the U.S.

She became VP of sales and marketing, and helped establish and build Walther’s presence in the U.S. Five years later, Flannigan decided to retire. But once again, an opportunity presented itself.

“The Youth Shooting Sports Alliance (YSSA), asked me to come and be their executive director,” Flannigan said. “At the YSSA, we basically warehouse all kinds of firearms and archery equipment, and we loan them out to startup youth programs. It’s hard for some kids, especially from impoverished areas, and we make sure they have safe, reliable equipment so they have a good, positive reaction to their first time shooting.”

YSSA also provides safety equipment, such as eye and ear protection, targets, range bags and other soft goods and raises money to buy equipment youth shooting programs need.

“If it wasn’t for the generosity of our industry, we probably wouldn’t even exist,” Flannigan said. “Last year we were able to help around 22,000 kids in one way or another.”

As it did with everyone, COVID-19 had an impact on the operations of the Youth Shooting Sports Alliance.

“Spring and summer programs were cancelled to some extent,” Flannigan noted. “We told program leaders to keep the equipment we had provided until they could safely run their programs. Some groups found ways to safely shoot with social distancing. So, while things were slow, they are definitely ramping up now. Kids need to be outside, and thank goodness we have such dedicated adults helping to keep this rolling. They’re the true heroes.”

Laurie Aronson — Lipsey’s

Laurie Lipsey Aronson grew up in the sporting goods business.

“We had four destination retail stores in Louisiana,” she shared. “During the holidays, I would wrap gifts. In the summer, I would work behind the knife counter, which was also where the cash register was.”

Aronson went to Emory University and worked in Atlanta for several years before she moved back to Baton Rouge to work in the family business as the credit manager. By then, Lipsey’s had gone through an evolution from retail to a combined retail and wholesale company, and finally to a wholesale firearms-only business. After serving as credit manager for six years Aronson became COO, and in 2002 she assumed the role of company president.

As she spent time in the company, Aronson realized she needed to align herself with people who were her age and who were up-and-coming in the industry.

“It didn’t really matter whether they were male or female,” she said. “It was about people being my age.”

While the industry has long been seen as one “behind the times,” in many ways, Aronson sees the upcoming cadre of younger executives recognize the value of both technology and data — and it’s creating a savvier, 21st century approach to business.

Recruitment Drive: “Sippin’ & Shootin’” Effort

Over the past couple of years, Aronson has hosted a series of events she calls “Sippin’ & Shootin’” to welcome women to the shooting sports.

“For years I’ve heard women say things like ‘My husband hunts, and I’m a hunting widow,’” Aronson stated. “Others have never shot a handgun before but they want to learn, and they don’t want the pressure a parent or a brother or a spouse might put on them. They don’t want to feel like they’re asking stupid questions or they don’t know the right questions to ask.”

She went down her email list and sent emails to about 250 friends and acquaintances. About 90 women responded to the first email, and she invited them to come shoot and then sit and sip wine after the shooting was done.

Then she sent out an email to all her team members at Lipsey’s.

“I needed trainers,” she shared. “I needed people who were qualified to teach, and it didn’t matter if they were men or women because they were part of a ‘safe zone’ where you don’t have a father or a brother or a spouse who’s saying ‘You’re doing it wrong.’”
The first event had a great turnout and was very successful.

“We did several events over the next 18 months,” Aronson recollected. “We’ve done simulators and live-fire, and we’ve had people come and talk about safety.”

The idea was to give women a chance to get comfortable with firearms handling rather than tell them they need to buy a gun or join a particular organization. After each event is over, the participants sit and share a glass of wine and network.

“I knew any time you dangle a bottle of wine in front of my friends they’re going to come running,” Aronson quipped. “Obviously we shoot first and then we sip, but I knew if I served wine and cheese, we would have a full house. And it’s been fun.”

These women represent an integral part of the industry’s past, present and future — they’ve brought business acumen and are passionate about seeing the industry’s continued growth and diversification.

Carolee Anita Boyles has been covering the outdoor industry since 1981, and has been a Shooting Industry contributing editor since 1998.

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