By Rob Kepple
TDCAA Executive Director in Austin
I want to thank the Board members who completed their service at the end of the year. This has been a challenging year for TDCAA leadership. We began in the middle of the pandemic shutdown, and the Board carefully navigated difficult waters to get the association back to live training while preserving a commitment to online offerings. Their thoughtful and careful stewardship of your organization has made a real difference!
Thanks to our departing board members: Julie Renken, DA in Washington County; Tiana Sanford, ADA in Montgomery County; Ricky Thompson, DA in Fisher, Mitchell, and Nolan Counties; Bob Wortham, CDA in Jefferson County, and Natalie Koehler, CA in Bosque County.
I want to give a special shout-out to the outgoing Chair of the Board, Kenda Culpepper, CDA in Rockwall County. Kenda took on the presidency of our association in challenging times. Like everyone, it seemed as if we were making new decisions about how to deliver services to our members every day. Kenda did a great job keeping us focused on what is important—what you, Texas prosecutors and staff, needed from your association. Thanks, Kenda, for your leadership and friendship!
A new board
I want to welcome some new faces to the Board and thank some folks for continuing their service in a new capacity. Welcome to Sunni Mitchell, ADA in Fort Bend County; Andrew Heap, CA in Kimble County; Steve Reis, DA in Matagorda County; Will Ramsay, DA in Delta, Franklin, and Hopkin Counties; and David Holmes, CA in Hill County. Congratulations to: Region 6 Director Greg Willis, CDA in Collin County, who was elected as the association’s Secretary/Treasurer; Bill Helwig, DA in Yoakum County and Secretary/Treasurer, who was elected to the President-Elect Position; and Chilo Alaniz, DA in Webb and Zapata Counties and Finance Committee member, who was elected to the DA-at-Large position. We have a great team for 2022!
Plans for the new year
Our newly formed Board will have plenty to do. In 2016, TDCAA completed its most recent in a series of five-year plans. In the last plan, we addressed some governance issues, and—this was prescient in 2011 when we wrote it—launched a distance learning initiative (meaning, online training). In 2022 the Board’s new President, Jack Roady, CDA in Galveston County, will appoint a Long-Range Planning Committee to map out our course for the next five years. The saying might go, “Any direction is OK if you don’t know where you are going,” but your leadership has done a great job of plotting a deliberate course as we thoughtfully meet the needs of our members.
One major initiative we will be working to develop: continued and robust online training. Reviews from our membership strongly encourage us to continue to offer online courses along with our traditional live conferences. To that end, we sought additional resources from our grantor agency, the Court of Criminal Appeals, to staff that effort. Thanks to the Court, and in particular Judge Barbara Hervey, for helping us develop this continued effort.
Welcome to our new Assistant Training Director
The first step in continuing our online training was to hire a new Assistant Training Director, whose job it is to live and breathe TDCAA online courses. I am pleased to announce that we have hired Gregg Cox, a former ADA in Travis County (among other things). There is not much Gregg hasn’t done in his 30-year career as a line prosecutor, and he also brings some skills when it comes to the production of online content. He has hit the ground running—welcome, Gregg!