Meet Roger Harvey of Basic Gun Safety

Today we’d like to introduce you to Roger Harvey.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Roger. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I starting shooting competitively in the military in the late ’60’s as a member of the United States Military Pentathlon team. I had played water polo and rugby in college so, as a young lieutenant in Germany, my command thought I was a logical choice to represent our unit in a competition involving running and swimming. No thought was given to marksmanship. In those days, folks just assumed any athlete could pick-up what we called “the skill events.” For me, that seemed to be true. I earned a place on the US Team and got a bronze medal for my pistol performance in Fontainebleau, France.

My swimming and running performances were mediocre. I left the Army after my two-year “hitch” was up and returned to studies at Brigham Young University. A couple of years later, I got a call from the Pentagon asking if I would come back on active duty with the US Team for the ’71 World Championships in Hanover, Germany. A summer job as an officer – training and competing in Europe sounded WAY better than being a seasonal lifeguard, so away I want. In fact, that was my life-style for the next three summers. between classes at BYU. I finished second in pistol in Germany (to a Dutch Olympian), plus my team won one of the swimming and running events.

The 1972 competition was hosted in Washington, DC where the United States finished first. I got another silver medal in Rome in 1973. At the end of 1974, I was offered a full-time job in the Pentagon as the Department of Defense Executive Agent for the US program. Then from 1976 through 1980, the Army sent me to the US Olympic Training Center for Modern Pentathlon working with the Olympic program while concurrently heading-up the Military Pentathlon program.

Though no longer a competitor, my job was to field a US delegation from the various services that would proudly represent what was regarded as the ultimate physical fitness test. In that capacity, I was able to recruit world-class talent in swimming and running, but training those folks to shoot was something we’d have to do AFTER the final team selection.

The good news was, the US had many Olympic champions and I could get them to help us. All-in-all, I spent 13 years with a high-level of success in international competition. It was rewarding seeing my teams recognized as the National Anthem played for gold medals. But one of the best parts was developing shooters who placed highly in marksmanship after only a few months of training. One of our athletes won the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon. I couldn’t take much credit for his running, swimming, or cycling ability. But I’d like to think getting folks like that to finish on the podium in marksmanship reflected a distinctive ability to teach motivated beginner shooters to rapidly master the fundamentals of success. I left the world of competitive sports in 1981 when the Army had other things for me to do until my retirement ten years later. As a civilian, I want back to work in the sports industry as an executive with a company that designed, built, and operated recreational sports complexes.

When I retired from that career I decided to spend my “emeritus” years giving back what I had learned in my 24-year military career. I started a little “firearms academy” with the goal of coaching motivated, beginner shooters to quickly master basic gun skills – well enough to almost always out-perform others with years, even decades of experience. That’s the Basic Gun Safety story. It has worked well for me. This summer, on the eve of my 50th anniversary as a military pentathlete, the US Team invited me back to Barrington, Vermont to train, once again their pistol shooters for a World Championship in Prague, The Czech Republic. To be so recognized makes it all the more rewarding to offer what I do to Southern California families seeking to develop shooting skills for competition, personal protection of simply for recreation. Our motto is “Safe, Competent, Confident, AND FUN!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Running my business has been pretty easy from the start. Maybe that’s because my goals were modest in the first place. I never set out to make “big bucks,” or even to be as busy as I was in my other two careers. I just wanted to make people smile at themselves when their performance exceeds expectations. The struggles have been to keep finding new ways to coach basic skills. I like to make-up little games where people of all ages and levels of experience “discover” for themselves what works. The less I talk the better (and anyone who knows me will tell you that’s a challenge).

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Basic Gun Safety story. Tell us more about the business.
I teach a graduate course in sports event and facility management at Long Beach State University. My class starts with a challenge for students to define what makes them “distinctive.” For most of them, that’s a hard one. But I eventually get them to understand how important it is to have a distinctive marketing statement. I learned as a multi-sport athlete that my success came in spite of mediocre skills in any of the individual disciplines required. What made me stand-out was the combination of those talents. My business (I hope) practices what I preach. I’m distinctive in that I do what a lot of other folks do. But the combination of how I do things sets me apart. I find ways for students to discover for themselves what it takes to perform at a high level.

Sometimes an achievement might be considered accidental. But then we work on repeating what works. I never work on fixing what’s wrong. We just keep playing with what’s rewarding. The occasional missteps aren’t worth considering. I just finished coaching a senior adult who started with one or two good shots out of 10. We focused on what those good ones felt like … why they happened. Then we agreed on incremental goals to shoot 3 good ones, then 4 and eventually WAY more great shots than my student expected. He wasn’t there to “shoot a gun.” He was there for the emotional experience of personal accomplishment, for self-confidence, and for the thrill of learning a new skill. For some, it’s bragging rights or to out-shoot a partner (especially fun is to help a timid wife out-shoot her “macho” cop husband!). But what makes Basic Gun Safety distinctive is that we teach students, not lessons. First, I seek to understand what my student wants – emotionally. Only when I know why they decided to take a class from me – AND why they enrolled when they did, instead of last year or next, do I attempt to be understood. If what we do isn’t emotionally rewarding (fun), we’re doing it wrong!

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
I’m not sure I believe in luck. The more I’m doing what I love, the luckier I seem to be.

Booker T. Washington said, “Nature reveals itself to those who love it enough.” Some might call what nature reveals “lucky.”

But I think it has more to do with paying attention. Maybe my philosophy of luck has something to do with being raised by parents who were married at the dawn of the great depression. For my mother, everything in the ’50’s and 60’s when I was growing-up was miraculous! One of my Army supervisors once said to me, “Roger, I’ve never known anybody like you. If someone leaves a pile of horse s__t on your doorstep, you get excited thinking someone brought you a pony.” If I’m lucky, I think it is because I look for good things and I love what I do.

Pricing:

• NRA Basic Firearms classes: $100 – $125
• NRA Instructor-level classes: $150 – $200
• Ca DOJ Firearm Safety Instructor-level classes: $125
• Family Firearms classes (for an entire family – pistol, rifle, shotgun, and home protection): From $550
• Individual coaching: From $100/hr.
• Customized firearms training for groups: From $500, including range fees, firearms rental, ammo and materials.
• Shooting Parties. I provide the range time, firearms, ammo, instruction (if desired), and safety supervision: $600 and up.

Contact Info:

• Address: 6922 Breeland Drive, Huntington Beach, CA 92647
• Website: www.basicgunsafety.com
• Phone: 714/864-0203
• Email: roger@basicgunsafety.com
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/basic-gun-safety-huntington-beach

Getting in touch: VoyageLA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.