***** There’s a lot of good info and spot on analysis above. The salaries listed seem high to the average working person bringing in 61k a year or perhaps a decent IT guy in the area making 200k, but the skill set required to work at the levels needed to keep a big enterprise rolling are very rare and relatively few people can do the job well. There are people not far from my neighborhood, who are at that salary and compensation range, and they have small to medium sized local businesses (perhaps 100 million or so in EBITDA, certainly under a billion..) that they built up over some time, or they were hired to keep the business humming along, or to acquire other talent and close the sales needed on big projects, etc.. There are some no name CEO’s and CFO’s at companies that are not household names who make seven figures a month, including incentives - and they look like just average dudes and dudettes while sitting at Uncle Julio’s or shopping for Chocolate covered raisins at Trader Joe’s. Drive out to the poorer parts of Potomac and look at some of the bigger homes that are not quite at the gated community level - the folks that live in those houses generally work for a living as opposed to having inherited wealth from a family member who long ago developed those mints they put in urinals at finer dining establishments, or whatever.
I know a few CEO’s at organizations about the size of the NRA revenue wise, but not notoriety wise, and what danb writes in his post about their compensation is about spot on IME. I went to college, and have marketable skills in my field that have allowed me to make a comfortable living, working a LOT less hard than the guys outside my window right now literally digging ditches and moving gravel around the foundation of my future neighbors homes. I can’t do what those ditch digging people are doing outside my home (at least do it well...), and I’m reasonably certain they can’t do my job either. I know for a fact I can’t do what those C-list salaried CEO’s and other executives at that level do. It’s a rare skill set for sure, and it’s more than just having a college degree or being able to glad hand, and schmooze with others in the executive washroom or at company cornnhole competitions, etc... The free market has determined the compensation level I am remunerated at, and it’s the same for the head guys at the NRA, and most every other organization at that level and beyond.
