As long as your membership with USPSA is current, NROI will automagically set you up with an online review exam for recertification prior to your certification expiration date. There is no need to contact us or request an exam, the process is all automated once you become certified with NROI.

Range Officer retention is an important goal for the USPSA/NROI. As such, we've made it easy for you to retain your certification. We are currently using an online exam system for NROI-certified officials. If you've been expired for six months or less you will be able to log in to the member lookup at www.uspsa.org to take the exam online. Here are some general guidelines on how this will work:

1) Membership must be current to access this feature.

2) Members will get instant results once an exam is submitted for scoring. No more waiting for the mail to find out if you passed!

3) Exams can be started, saved, and completed at a later time. If you don't get it all done in one sitting, no worries, the system will save your progress and allow you to go back to finish later.

4) If you have difficulty with an exam, or a question about your results, we will be able to log in and see exactly what you're seeing.

5) Officials will have three (3) chances to pass the exam. This should be more than adequate. If you find that you are unable to pass the exam within three tries, we will be happy to hook you up with an instructor for some remedial training. We want to help you succeed!

6) Exams can be printed so you'll have a copy for your records, if you so desire.

7) Members will need their PIN to access the exam from the member look up page. The PIN is a 7 digit number which may be found on your Front Sight mailing label. Each issue of Front Sight will contain a new PIN, and the pins on your two most recent issues of Front Sight will be accepted by the system.

(It's generally much easier to remember a password you chose than to remember a 7 digit number which changes every time a new Front Sight comes out. You may use your PIN to configure a personal access password which will not change with each issue of Front Sight. You may use your personal password, or the PIN from your most recent copy of Front Sight magazine to change your password at any time. Please follow this link to go to the page that will allow you to set a personal password.)

8) If you have been expired for more than six months, please email us at nroi@uspsa.org and we'll send you a long version of the exam as per NROI policy. Officials expired for more than a year will be required to take the course again.

9) Once you successfully pass the exam, NROI HQ will be notified and will send out your new packet confirming recertification. You will NOT need to call HQ to inform us that you passed or failed. However, persons who pass their exam will not see their updated certification reflected on the classification page until after the next monthly update, starting with the November 2008 update.

10) We will be changing from quarterly exams to monthly. This means that once a month we will add exams for anyone set to expire in that month. For example, if you are due to expire in November, the exam will be added to your classification page on the first of November.

Because retention is so important to us, we don't want to lose you. We know life gets in the way sometimes; that's why there's a grace period. As long as you haven't been expired for more than six months you can still take the regular recertification exam online and regain certification.

If you've been expired for more than six months, but not more than a year, you can still regain certification by taking an exam. It just won't be the same exam you would have taken online. Contact us at via email at: nroi@uspsa.org and we'll send you the long version for renewal.

It is possible to regain certification after being expired more than a year, but it requires taking the course over. This isn't a punitive measure, but a safety issue. Range Officers would need to find or schedule a class in their area and Chief Range Officers can do the same, or they may take the Correspondence Course, if desired.

If you get stuck on any part of the regular recertification exam or the long version of the renewal exam, just give us a call or drop us an email. We'll be happy to put you in touch with one of our fantastic instructors. They'll talk you through any confusion over rules, procedures, wording, etc. It's not cheating, it's an open-book test and we would prefer that you walked away from the exam with a firm understanding of the material rather than just the ability to plug in the right answers in order to pass.

If you took the exam online you don't need to do anything more. NROI HQ will be notified that you've passed and once a week we will mail out the renewal packet that says you're good to go for another year. It will be identical to the packet we used to send out with the written exams. If you had to do a paper version of the exam we'll get it graded and send you a letter confirming whether or not you passed.

If you receive a letter stating that you did not receive the required score for recertification after three tries then you have a couple options. You can opt to take the class again for a refresher or we will put you in touch with an instructor who can help you with the questions on a re-test. However, if you have trouble with the questions or rules prior to submitting it for grading, please contact us and let us know. We are here to help. We can put you in touch with one of our instructors for some remedial training or just talk you through whatever may be confusing you right over the phone. We are very invested in your success and would hate to see you give up.

Due to the large volume of exams received daily, we may experience peak times when there are delays in recertification. If you just submitted your test in two days ago, chances are good that it's still in queue, waiting for processing. We'll get to it, I promise. However, if it's been months and months and still no word -- you should probably call or email to follow up.

Remember, we want to do everything we can to help you remain a certified Range Official within the NROI, but ultimately the responsibility lies with you. If you don't see a link to your exam at the designated time, it's your responsibility to follow up as to why. If you don't receive the packet stating that you're good for another year, the onus is on you to contact us to find out what happened. With thousands of officials to track annually, there's just no way we can call each and every one individually to hold their hand through the process. We'd love to, but it's just not realistic. Reach out to us if something doesn't seem right and we'll do everything we can to help get it back on track.

Have a question that isn't addressed here? Email and let us know: nroi@uspsa.org