Below you will find the current Officers and Directors of Knife Rights, Inc. and Knife Rights Foundation, Inc. Except where specifically noted, Officers and Directors serve on boards of both organizations, but each is operated independently.
Doug Ritter – Founder, Chairman and CEO
Douglas S. Ritter is an award-winning journalist and authority in the areas of survival and survival equipment.
Mr. Ritter served as a contributing editor to The Aviation Consumer and Aviation Safety for over a decade and was also Safety and Survival Editor for Practical Sailor and Powerboat Reports. He served as the News Editor of AVweb for nearly two years (1998-1999) and won the National Air Transportation Association's 1999 "Aviation Journalism Award" for excellence in aviation journalism.
Doug is a Cornerstone founding member of POMA, the Professional Outdoor Media Association, as well as being a full member of BWI, Boating Writers International. Doug won the 2000 Boating Writers International Annual Writing Contest in the category of Safety, Seamanship and Rescue for his five-part series of articles, "Life Rafts: The Good, Bad and The Ugly." He is also a former officer and pilot in the Civil Air Patrol.
As a working full member of the S.A.E. Aerospace Council, Aircraft Division, S-9 Cabin Safety Provisions Committee, and the S-9A Subcommittee – Evacuation and Ditching Systems, Doug participates in the development of standards, procedures and recommended practices for related systems on transport category aircraft.
Doug is also a member of RTCM (Radio Technical Commission for Maritime Services) Subcommittee SC110 that develop standards for EPIRBs and PLBs (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacons and Personal Locator Beacons) that form the basis for FCC and many international regulations that regulate the minimum performance requirements for these beacons. Doug has been an active participant in COSPAS-SARSAT Task Groups and Joint Committee meetings that have developed improved international standards for performance and testing of all 406 MHz emergency beacons, ELTs, EPIRBs and PLBs. Doug's participation in these committees is a direct outgrowth from his emergency beacon testing that revealed serious performance deficiencies in some GPS-enabled emergency beacons and significant loopholes in performance and testings standards for 406 MHz beacons.
Doug is the only consumer advocate that participates in these standards setting committees.
Mr. Ritter established Equipped To Survive on the Web in 1994.The non-profit Equipped To Survive Foundation was founded in 2001 to support Doug's work and the ETS web site.
After evaluating survival gear for over a decade, Doug has developed some very strong opinions about what works and what doesn't. In some cases he has given up hope that someone else will deliver a product that includes all the features he would prefer. As a result, he began collaborations to produce gear to his own exacting specifications. The Pocket Survival Pak was the first, followed by his first knife collaboration, the RSK Mk1. More information can be found at www.DougRitter.com.
Alan Romania – Secretary / Treasurer Knife Rights, Inc.
Alan Romania is an Firefighter Captain/Paramedic working on a busy ALS Engine Company in the Metro Phoenix, Arizona, area. With over a decade of firefighting and EMS experience, Alan has worked in both urban and rural communities. In addition to his full time job with the fire department, Alan is a lead instructor for a paramedic training program, teaches Wilderness Medicine for EMS providers and runs Kachina Rescue, a volunteer rescue/medical team with a primary mission of wilderness education and supporting outdoor sporting events with affordible medical/rescue services.
On his rare days off, Alan likes to participate in Ironman distance triathlons, adventure races and marathon mountain bike events. Alan also is a Contributing Editor to Equipped To Survive.
Susan Ritter – Secretary / Treasurer Knife Rights Foundation, Inc.
Sue Ritter has 38 years of management experience in management, operations, marketing and business development for public and privately held corporations. Her non-profit experience includes consulting and board management positions for local and national non-profits.
Ethan Becker – Director
Ethan Becker lives at Half Moon Ridge in the mountains of East Tennessee with his wife, Susan, author and artist. He was passed the responsibility of the stewardship of the Joy of Cooking in 1976 from his mother Marion, and recently completed the blockbuster 75th anniversary edition.
Prior to his work on JOY, he owned a highly innovative firm that designed and manufactured mountain climbing equipment. Several of his designs are in current worldwide use ranging from the CMI Figure 8 Descender to other mountain climbing gear. Becker’s Patrol Pack, manufactured by Eagle Industries, is used extensively by the U.S. military, as well as the Becker Knife and Tool tactical and survival knives that are considered to be among the finest in the world.
Ethan is an avid reader of history and the humanities. He also enjoys martial arts, hunting, and primitive skills. He was awarded the prestigious 1979 President’s Stewardship Award from the Nature Conservancy, for his work and commitment to the preservation of the environment.
Tom Gresham – Director
Tom Gresham has been shooting since the age of six, deer hunting since 11, and at the age of 13 he was taking photographs for the bestselling book The Complete Book of Bass Fishing, written by his father, Grits Gresham. By the time he was 18, Tom was co-author (with his famous father) of a syndicated newspaper column. At 23, he was the editor of Southern Outdoors Magazine. Other outdoor magazines he has edited include American Hunter, Alaska, Handloader, and Rifle. Tom also has written several books, including Weatherby: The Man, The Gun, The Legend.
Gresham hosts a nationally-syndicated radio talk show — “Tom Gresham’s Gun Talk” — carried in 135 markets, XM satellite radio, and has two million downloads of the show each year. He’s the co-host of two television series: Guns and Gear as well as Gun Talk. Both shows air on Pursuit Channel and NBC Sports Network.
Tom has won numerous awards, including Shooting Sports Writer of The Year and was named to Talker Magazine’s list of “100 Most Important Radio Talk Show Hosts in America.”
Pete Brownell – Director
Pete Brownell is the third-generation President of Brownells, Inc. He is also on the board of the NRA and the National Association of Sporting Goods Wholesalers, as well as a number of other boards. Pete and his family have been staunch and prolific supporters of the Second Amendment for three generations.