Brenda Shinn

Career

Shinn started out her sporting career at the age of seventeen, while learning shooting at the Orange County Sheriff’s Explorer program In 1982, Shinn placed eleventh for her category at the United States of America Shooting National Championships, and eventually joined the Orange County Sheriff"s Department Pistol Team, where she shot for three years as a distinguished master. Following her son"s birth, Shinn worked full time as a lieutenant with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department at Jurupa Valley Patrol Station.

She also graduated from Chapman University in 1998 with a bachelor"s degree in criminal justice, and again in 2002 with a master"s degree in organizational leadership.

Shinn qualified for the women"s 10 m air pistol, as a 46-year-old, at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, by placing second from the United States. Olympic Team Trials in Fort Benning, Georgia, behind Beki Snyder. She finished only in thirty-seventh place by two points behind Japan"s Michiko Fukushima from the final attempt, for a total score of 373 targets.

Achievements

• She won the gold medal for the women"s air pistol at the 2009 United States of America Shooting National Championships in Fort Benning, Georgia, and achieved a seventh-place finish in the same category at the 2010 Championships of the Americas (Centre for Alternative Technology Games) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won the 1980 National Police Explorer Pistol Match, and had an invitation to train at the United States. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she switched from competing in the two-handed.38 category to the air pistol. Since then, she had won numerous medals in shooting competitions, including the bronze for the air pistol at the 2007 United States of America Shooting National Championships.