Morning everyone
Back in 2014 Ted started designing the very 1st iteration of Airgun Nation. Later that year he brought me on board to help with design, testing, and collaboration. We launched AGN publicly on April 1st 2015 (no joke). At the time Ted was undisputedly one of the most popular faces in Airgunning, some might even say that he put "Airgunners on the YouTube map". Ted's knowledge, experience, and industry presence was the spark that set Airgun Nation on fire.
In early 2016 Ted decided that being a forum owner wasn't his cup of tea (he prefers green tea, no milk, no drama) so I purchased Airgun Nation from him.
Hi Guys, I bet you’re wondering why I up and disappeared a month or so ago? Okay. I’ll tell you. But, if I’m going to tell you, then dammit, I’m going to TELL you. Short answer: owning a forum sucks. Well, at least for me. From beginning to end, it taxed me and [consequently] my family in a way I will never allow again. I’m not going to tear into the gritty details. I don’t want to relive that crap. And, I neither ask for, nor expect, your understanding. You can think I am a complete twit for cutting bait. I can live with that. What I cannot live with is my little girl telling me that she doesn’t want to “bother me” to play with her because she can tell from my lousy mood that I had been doing “gunforum stuff”. In that moment, my eyes welled up with tears; followed by an instant smile on my face. I knew instantly what needed to be done. I asked her what she would think if I stopped doing forum stuff forever. She smiled and nodded. That was it. I made her a promise. So, AGN is 100% in Michael’s hands now (and has been since that day). You can thank him exclusively for its continuation, because without him AGN would be gone. Yep, I was fully prepared to shut it down. I would rather see this forum deleted before allowing it to become something ugly. You can pound your chest for the first amendment all you want, but the truth is that without fair and sensible moderation forums decay. Bullies and profiteers roll in. Constructive conversations turn to pissing matches, and in no time a source of information and camaraderie turns into just another Internet crap-hole. The good folks will simply move on. So, this brings me to the future of AGN, and with that I should tell you what I think of Michael. He’s a good man – the right man for this job – level, honest, fair. He stuck to our vision of what AGN should be, even when my frustration got the better of me. In my mind, he is the person who should own AGN. And, now he does. 100%. I am not a silent partner. Airgun Nation belongs to Michael Wendt. Now, at this point, I wouldn't blame you if you were considerably soured by what I've written. But, if this blunt letter has convinced you of at least one thing, it should be that I am being 100% honest with you. So, here’s a little more honesty for ya.... I truly did value EVERY SINGLE PERSON who contributed positively to AGN. I still do.... and will. If you see me in public, please introduce yourself so I can thank you in person. In the end, I wasn't the guy to carry this torch. But, that doesn't mean I don't care about the prosperity of this place. I wish you all many years of happy and constructive airgun chatter. And, in my horribly biased opinion, AGN's layout and management is unmatched. It simply came down to time and strength. I did not have enough of either to run this forum and live the life I wanted. My little girl; my family won this race. Best Regards Gentlemen, ted
I spent 15 years working as a Telecom Engineer. Then in 2016 we moved to Texas and I resigned from Telecom to pursue Airgun Nation full-time. I've dedicated the last 5 years to making Airgun Nation the best stop on the airgun information circuit. We now have 52 partners from around the world and we employ 5 Moderators.
So far this year Google Analytics shows that we've hosted 563,701 unique users and 12,708,766 page-views!
Airgun Nation is a continually evolving platform committed to providing a fun, safe, forward thinking atmosphere for everyone to enjoy. We are home to roughly 1 million unique users and over 20 million page-views annually.
Ted may no longer be a part of AGN, but his vision lives on through ALL of us.
Thanks for being here, we appreciate you.
-Michael