The 14-year Air Force veteran is currently headquartered at Kelly Field, adjacent to Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, where he serves as an analyst in a number of areas, including operations research, process improvement, weapons systems, personnel, finance, and war games, to name a few. Rich later earned a master’s degree in industrial engineering in 2013 at New Mexico State University and a graduate degree in 2021 in military operational art and science at the Air Command and Staff College at Maxwell AFB Alabama. Rich says he “definitely learned time management at Trinity!” He stayed busy between classes, trap and skeet, and Air Force ROTC, but was also a member of Trinity’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes, The Well, and Intervarsity ministries. You can knock on their doors and get advice with classes.” I loved Trinity because the professors were available. I was challenged for four years and taught different ways to think. “I met my wife and closest friends at Trinity. “I wanted a great school that was small and that would provide the opportunity to continue competing in clay target shooting,” says Rich, who won his first target shooting medal at the age of 9. Tom Hanzel, who guided the University to five national collegiate titles and is a posthumous member of the Trinity Athletic Hall of Fame. He remembers reading about former Trinity world champions John Shima ’81 and Todd Bender ’82, led by the late Col. After earning a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from Trinity in 2008 (with a minor in economics), he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Air Force.Ī native of Johns Creek, Georgia, Rich chose to attend Trinity because of its small-school environment and the University’s vaunted trap and skeet team. While attending Trinity, Rich was cross-enrolled at the University of Texas at San Antonio in the Air Force ROTC program. He was a blessing to me as team captain, and a dear friend to this day.” “Daniel was a natural leader,” Boerner says, “and it didn’t take long to recognize his ability to inspire, to motivate, and to bring out the best in his teammates. The Tigers came away in 2008 with an ACUI bronze medal-Rich’s last semester as a Trinitonian. Rich was elected captain of Trinity’s trap and skeet team and competed in four American College Unions International (ACUI) Championships, the governing body for collegiate trap and skeet events. Their two oldest sons have taken up target shooting, and all three play baseball. They have three sons, Britton (age 11), Beckett (age 9), and Boone (age 5). She is an author about parenting skills and director of operations for Positive Parenting Solutions. McKinley went on to become the International School of the Americas Teacher of the Year. She also played on Trinity’s women’s soccer team. The gun club is a special place for Rich, not only for his training regimen but also because it’s the site where he met his future wife, the former McKinley White ’07, M’08, when both were members of the trap and skeet team. Coach Boerner also teaches a physical education class at Trinity, tutoring students each semester in the fine art of shotgun shooting. The San Antonio Gun Club is also the training site for Trinity University’s trap and skeet team, coached by retired Marine Corps Sgt. Opened in 1930, it is the oldest active gun club in the nation. Rich trains at the historic San Antonio Gun Club, nestled near Olmos Basin Park on Contour Drive. In order to be successful, the athlete must keep control of their mind, focusing only on the shot at hand, not the one before, or ones to come.” “It requires great mental and visual acuity. “The targets are fast and unpredictable,” Rich says. A total of 250 targets are fired upon for each competitor in a match, with 25 per round. Six shooters make up a “squad,” and the shooters rotate one station to the right after each shot. There are six stations on an Olympic Trap field, five of which are shooting stations, with one non-firing station worked into the sequence. Targets are presented in a random sequence. The “trap machine” throws clay targets into the air out and away from the shooter in a 90-degree arc at speeds between 65 and 80 miles per hour. Rich, an Air Force major who is team captain of that service’s shooting team, practices his craft in the sometimes-baffling sport of Olympic Trap. Daniel Rich ’08 is vying for a position on the USA Shooting Team for the Paris Olympics in the summer of 2024.
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