About Us

OUR MISSION:

Combat Sport Supply is a company dedicated to bringing you quality Tactical Gear, Firearms accessories, Airsoft training and replicas and Survival gear and supplies at competitive prices.

 

With over 10 years of experience in Airsoft and over twenty years of experience in Paintball, we know our combat sports and what the players want! Although this is our first internet retail venture, we are turning our years of Retail experience, knowledge, contacts in the industries and know-how into a quality internet store that prides itself on positive customer service, quick turn-around on order deliveries and selling only quality products.

As CSS grows, we will be adding more and more exciting products and services. We also look to help each sport grow by sponsoring and hosting organized, and safe events around the U.S.

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THE "OPERATORS"

Justin Brown- President
Literally growing up with Paintball, Justin's father Forest Brown, opened one of the first Paintball fields in the country, Challenge Park, in 1985 just outside of Chicago.

Working at the family business, Justin saw Paintball go through many changes and spent his weekends refereeing, running events, working at their retail stores, building forts, trench systems, trails and cleaning the rental equipment. Lots of rental equipment.

After high school, Justin travelled and lived throughout the west, and started a family, but always keep up on Paintball and its trends, running events where he lived and playing when he could.

In 1999, his father asked him to return to Chicago to help him build and operate his newest venture. Forest had secured a deal with a major Paintball manufacturer to build the most original and elaborate Paintball field in the world. In addition, it would also be the Worlds First Extreme Sports Theme Park, Challenge Park Xtreme, and feature a skatepark, bmx race track, mountain biking trails and more. During construction, Justin managed crews building fields, trails and other infrastructure for the park, and also oversaw the other construction project managers.

 Justin & Tony Hawk

Looks like he's about to backhand Tony!

After the park opened in 2000, Justin became the Operations Manager and was in charge of running the day to day operations, referees, and was given the task of bringing exciting events to the new facility. Justin began right away by bringing in some cool events such as the William Shatner celebrity Paintball game, a tour stop by the Tony Hawk Gigantic Skate Tour to chill out and play Paintball between shows, the Crazy Freakin Bikers, (CFB) Mat Hoffman's BMX X-Games Qualifier competition, rock concerts, scenario games, bmx exhibitions and more.

 

Mat Hoffman Walks & Talks with Justin

In 2002, Justin finally got to see something he had heard a lot about, but hadn't seen yet. Airsoft. The Minnesota Airsoft Association, led by Matt Brown (no relation), and Gabe Stitzel brought about 25 players and their equipment to the park to showcase it to Justin and Forest, and they were immediatley hooked. Justin saw the potential of Airsoft as a great sport and immediatley began to organize Airsoft games for the park in 2003.

In the Spring of 2003, after a disagreement with the manufacturer/partner that bankrolled the construction of the park over business philosophies, safety and Airsoft, Justin's fathers' contract was cancelled. Justin was asked to stay, but you can imagine what he said after his father had basically been fired, without whom the park wouldn't even exist.

 

"WeltMan" Takes it like a Man at Shatner Game

Not one to waste time, Justin opened a retail store in Joliet, Illinois specializing in Paintball and Airsoft supplies in August of 2003 and began running his Airsoft events shortly thereafter.

Using his knowledge of event running, promotion and planning, Justin quickly became the premier Airsoft event organizer in the Midwest, making his mark with the popular CODENAME: Thunder series of events. Using his film production company, Summit Lake Entertainment (which we haven't mentioned yet), Justin produced the extremely popular CODENAME: Thunder DVD, one of the highest selling Airsoft DVDs of all time. Popular CODENAME: Thunder DVDs

 

Wanting to focus more on his budding film career and event organizing, Justin sold the majority of his share in the Joliet retail store and began the adventure known as Combat Sport Supply.com

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Butch Leeper


 Butch  proudly served with the US Army 2nd Armored Division in Germany during the Cold War acheived the rank of Sargent. According to him, "Germany has good people and GREAT BEER". Looking across the Iron Curtain was a
sobering experience that makes him glad to be an American.

After the Army, he went to work at a miniatures gaming company named Martian Metals. They manufactured metal figures for D&D fantasy style & Science Fiction games like Star Trek and Traveller. They also produced historical figures for wargames with time periods from ancient times to WWII. Martian Metals won many Gaming Industry awards for their quality figures that Butch oversaw.

In the early 80's, Butch moved from Texas, his home state to Chicago. Their he worked at FASA, a gaming company that produced such memorable games as Battletech, Mechwarrior, Star Trek the Starship combat game among others. Butch was intregal in many of the early Battletech 'Mech designs and was a major play tester for the ever evolving rules. At Gaming Conventions, Butch was in charge of running games for players to try out the gaming system, utilizing cool toy miniatures and terrain tables that he helped fabricate.

The Butch and some co-workers tried this thing called Paintball. They were hooked on the adrenaline rush and knew it would be a popular activity if promoted right. Butch became a partner in Challenge Park one of the oldest and most successful paintball fields in the world. There Butch's job was field operations manager, meaing he ran games, built bunkers, cut trails, and maintained guns and gear. "Lots of work, but lots of fun too". Through friends in the industry, Butch helped develope some of the best early paintball gear like the F1 Illustrator, and  Airgun Designs AutoMag paintball guns, early HP air systems and more.
       
After Butch sold the paintball park, he followed his passion for a while. On the side, Butch was an avid modeler. He did work as a model maker for architechs and others. He was proud to work with the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry to build their new multi-million dollar railroad layout, The Great Train Story a 3,500-square-foot HO scale model. Butch and others built all of the buildings in the new layout except the skyscrapers. Over 300 buildings like houses, businesses, barns and everything in between.
    


On working with CSS, Butch says "Justin asked me to move to Boise to help him by being his warehouse manager, so here I am".

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DEBRIEF:

 

Thank you for checking us out. Let us know if there is anything we can do to improve the CSS experience, products you'd like to see or anything else we can do to make www.CombatSportSupply.com better!

See ya on the field!

Justin Brown
President