Dretke Takes Over As CMIT Director

CMIT executive director Douglas Dretke

Douglas Dretke, executive director for the College of Criminal Justice’s Correctional Management Institute of Texas, brings a special insight to the position he officially took over July 1.

The 25-year veteran of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and SHSU alumnus has first-hand knowledge of the agency, one with which CMIT works closely, as well as a knowledge of the clientele’s perspective on the kind of resources CMIT provides.

“I bring in a tremendous amount of experience. I have the experience in the field, which gives me insight on a lot of the issues and the challenges that we face in the field of corrections,” Dretke said. “But also, because of my tenure, I also have a strong familiarity with the people who are the leadership within corrections around the state, and I’ve had a very strong interaction and working relationship with many of the national leaders in corrections.

“I think all of that comes together, that background experience and knowledge, really will serve the institute well in continuing to do what we do,” he said.

Dretke rose from the bottom of the ranks at TDCJ, starting out as a correctional officer for a year before moving up to assistant warden at both the Eastham and Hughes Units to senior warden at the Holliday and Pack Units and eventually to director for the Correctional Institutions division.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from SHSU in criminology and corrections in 1980 and his Master of Public Administration with a criminal justice concentration from Texas A&M—Corpus Christi in 2001.

In addition, Dretke has given over 16 speeches nationally on various criminal justice-related issues at training programs, panel discussions and presentations.

Born and raised in West Africa as a child of missionaries and later moving to Wisconsin to finish high school living with his grandparents, Dretke said the criminal justice field is something he was always passionate about.

“I read about Sam Houston State University in my high school library in Wisconsin and was convinced that Sam Houston State was where I needed to come for my degree,” he said, adding that he met his wife, an education major, at SHSU.

That sentiment carried over into his professional career, he said.

“I have a passion for leadership development and CMIT has the right focus on correctional leadership development that I feel is important that we continue to focus on,” he said. “It is such an exciting and tremendous opportunity to be able to serve the field through CMIT.

“As I’ve completed my first week and a half here, I am just so impressed with the staff of CMIT,” Dretke said. “CMIT is a team of tremendous professionals who do an incredible job of putting the number of programs, trainings and conferences they are able to put together every single year, and I’m very excited about working for Sam Houston State, my alma mater, and working with all of the leadership here.”

Another source of excitement for Dretke: his son is No. 61 on the Bearkat football team and is a junior kinesiology major, he said.

The Correctional Management Institute of Texas was created in 1994 as a parallel program to the Law Enforcement Management Institute of Texas and became responsible for developing and delivering professional development training programs for personnel in juvenile and adult institutional and community corrections agencies.

CMIT also provides technical assistance to criminal justice agencies and serves as a host to a number of conferences, training initiatives and meetings of agencies and professional organizations.

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SHSU Media Contact: Jennifer Gauntt
July 11, 2006
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