Thunder in the Mountains A Portrait of American Gun Culture

by Collins, Craig K.

• ISBN13: 9781493003853
• ISBN10: 1493003852
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-10-23
• Publisher: Lyons Press

Summary

In this beautifully written and powerful memoir, author Craig K. Collins ushers readers down a remarkable path – one that wends from the American frontier to present-day suburbia. Along the way, he explores the meaning of a history – of his family’s and his country’s – that is infused with the culture of the gun. Stops include an Indian massacre at Bad Axe, the siege of Vicksburg, the slaughter of buffalo in Montana, and the discovery of gold in a remote Nevada canyon. The story begins on a hunting trip Collins took with his father and brothers in the early ‘70s, when he was accidentally shot with a high-powered deer rifle at the age of 13 near the top of an isolated peak in Northeastern Nevada. He tells a personal story of a childhood in Idaho and Nevada, where hunting is a way of life and guns are revered – often with fatal and unintended results. He recalls friends – past and present – whose lives have been forever shattered or altered by the explosive force of a bullet.

Author Biography

Craig K. Collins began his career as a reporter and editor for the San Diego Union-Tribune’s Copley News Service, where his articles were published in major newspapers throughout the U.S. He soon pursued a career as a public relations and marketing executive and earned numerous local and national awards for excellence in corporate communications, journalism and writing. Today, he is an executive in the high-tech industry who has launched three start-ups and raised over $50 million in venture capital. He currently serves on the Board of Directors and is a major shareholder of Perminova, Inc., a cardiac surgery software firm for which he was President & CEO for the past two years. Collins possesses extensive experience in healthcare technology, strategic planning, operations, financing, and sales and marketing. In the late ‘90s, Collins founded and helped launch SupplyPro, Inc., a venture-backed supply chain technology company that was spun out of San Diego-based Pyxis. He was also Director of Marketing at DAOU Systems, and was part of a management team that executed one of the top-performing IPOs of 1997. He is a longtime resident of San Diego and is active in a number of business, community and charitable organizations. He holds an MBA, as well as a bachelor’s degree in English, from San Diego State University. He has written for and has been interviewed by numerous publications and electronic media outlets, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Examiner, Modern Healthcare, NPR Morning Edition, Univision and the San Diego Union-Tribune.