By Erleigh Wiley
TDCAA President & Criminal District Attorney in Kaufman County
In a prior article, I discussed plans for selecting the next executive director at TDCAA. We learned last September at the Annual Conference that Rob Kepple was retiring in December 2024. After Rob’s announcement, a selection committee for a new executive director was formed to search far and wide for his replacement. In the end, this decision was not a selection committee or Board decision; it was a decision by TDCAA’s service group of Texas prosecutors and staff.
As you read this column today, I am happy to report that the selection committee’s work is complete and that the TDCAA Board selected Shannon Edmonds as TDCAA’s next Executive Director. Rob and Shannon will continue to serve the TDCAA membership through the end of this year as they cooperate on a smooth transition, which will include a search for a new Director of Governmental Relations to fill Shannon’s current role (that job is now posted on tdcaa.com/job-bank).
A careful process
The process of hiring a new executive director was not easy and took about six months. Initially, a selection committee was formed. Committee members were chosen from across the state, and the group consisted of current elected prosecutors, former prosecutors, assistant prosecutors, members of the Texas District & County Attorneys Foundation, and TDCAA Board members to make sure there was a well-rounded representation from our organization.
The committee met numerous times, both in person and over Zoom. We began by deciding on the qualifications for the position, and we then posted the job opening to various websites focused on executive directors. Simultaneously, we created a survey to get feedback from you, TDCAA’s service group. The survey’s purpose was to gather current opinions of our organization and the future needs of TDCAA. Again, thank you for the time you took to answer the survey. It was great feedback!
The survey questions were short and to the point. They asked how the executive director should spend his or her time, what attributes make a successful director, what challenges an executive director might face, and how best our executive director can serve the membership and staff. The survey responses were reviewed, and we actually incorporated them into the questions we asked during in-person interviews of the candidates.
After receiving applications for the position, we narrowed the applications to three outstanding finalists. We requested references from them, and we contacted those references; those comments were then reviewed by the committee. The three finalists were finally interviewed at a neutral site.
They were all outstanding, and I believe you would have been proud for any of the finalists to represent TDCAA, but in the end the selection committee made its recommendation to the Board, which in turn offered the position to Shannon. Though it was a tough choice, it was great to know that our association is so well-respected that the caliber of our finalists made this decision difficult for the selection committee.
A little more about Shannon: He is currently TDCAA’s Director of Government Relations. He is a graduate of the University of Texas and UT’s School of Law and a longtime public servant. He worked in both the County Attorney’s Office and the District Attorney’s Office in Travis County, the Office of the Governor under the Honorable George W. Bush, and the Office of the Lieutenant Governor under the Honorable Bill Ratliff. Since 2002, he has worked at TDCAA primarily as a liaison between state prosecutors and the Texas Legislature.
Rob, who is retiring at the end of the year, will be so missed by me personally and I believe also by association members and staff. He has done so much as executive director for the last 22 years, and TDCAA has grown under his leadership. As Shannon put it, “Under the stewardship of Rob Kepple, TDCAA has become one of the premier prosecutor associations in the country. I am grateful that our leadership has chosen me to help them build upon that legacy, and I look forward to what the future holds for our organization.”
I am so proud to have been a part of this important process for our organization as Board President of TDCAA. It is the largest association of local prosecutors in the nation with more than 6,500 members, and it serves Texas prosecutors and staff with continuing legal education through live conferences and online courses, technical assistance, legislative assistance, and legal publications.
Please join me in welcoming Shannon as TDCAA’s next Executive Director. He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, and I am confident that his leadership will be instrumental in advancing TDCAA’s goals and furthering our impact in the legal community.