Board of Director profile #3: Gaines

NRA Board member Tom Gaines doesn't remember too much about his first National Police Shooting Championships in 1964. But he says he did okay.

"I had been a bullseye shooter, doing very well in bullseye, and the transition to PPC was not all that difficult," he says. At that point Gaines was a law enforcement official within the U.S. Border Patrol, which had just gotten involved in PPC in the early 60s.

Over the years, Gaines and other Border Patrol veterans have watched their teams improve and dominate the playing field in several areas of police pistol combat. In addition to that transition, Gaines has a few interesting stories about the technology he used in the 1960s as a recent graduate of the Border Patrol Academy--including a 12-pound radio.

His career is one of many promotions, but it is centered on the west coast, where he still resides.

"I went through the Academy in El Paso, Texas, in 1960 and then was assigned to central California, 120 miles east of San Diego. I was there for 10 years and transferred over to the check point for six or seven years," he says. "I started getting promoted and went down to Chula Vista, right on the U.S.-Mexico border, just south of San Diego."

Gaines was then appointed Assistant Chief of the Border Patrol Academy. He returned to Chula Vista as an Assistant Chief and served in that capacity until 1985. Gaines then became Assistant Director of Criminal Investigations in Central California. He served a year as the Deputy Director for all immigration activities in the Los Angelos district. "I retired in 1990 as the Assistant Director for Anti-Smuggling in the Los Angelos district."

But what about the beginning of Gaines' career? How did he become interested in serving in the Border Patrol?

It was something he had always wanted to do, he says. "I had taken the Border Patrol exam in 1958 and passed the exam but with a low score. They weren't hiring many people," he explains. "And then Castro had the revolution in Cuba, and that's what really was the impetus for hiring a lot of people because we opened up sectors and assigned persennel down in Florida."

"I finally got hired in 1960, and the rest is history."

Gaines' Border Patrol career spanned almost three decades. He has a unique analysis about the relationship Border Patrol agents have with the agency: "It's worse than a marriage. There is absolutely no divorce. Once you're in the Border Patrol you're there forever and ever and ever. It's a brother and sisterhood that evolves from the camaraderie you have," he says. Gaines also notes he is part of the Border Patrol's "very active retired association."

Does the current Border Patrol pistol team consider him a mentor? "I don't think they listen to me," he says with a laugh.

"I was on the Law Enforcement committe of the NRA in the mid 80s," he says. "When I retired I was asked if I would run for the board, and I was elected my first time out. I came on the Board in 2000."

Gaines serves as the Chair of the Law Enforcement Committee; as Vice Chair of the Silhouette Committee; on the Education and Training Committee; the Jeanne Bray Scholarship Committee; and the Committee on Committees.

As a member of all these committees, Gaines' priority is keeping NRA members at the forefront of the leadership's mind. "If you look at the very top of our organization chart, at the very top is the membership."

"The members are at the top of the heap. Those are the people we're here to serve — their interests, their objectives."

Gaines wouldn't mention his NPSC history until prompted. "I had a few very successful years," he says. He is actually a two-time police pistol champion, 1969 and 1970.

"In the broader spectrum of the law enforcement community, it really is a pretty tight-knit group, because we're all out there trying to serve and protect," he says. "It's what we do. It's the oath we take."