Freeman Martin selected to lead the Texas Department of Public Safety

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.

---

Freeman Martin, a senior official at the Texas Department of Public Safety, will serve as the agency’s new executive director beginning next month after the retirement of current DPS director Steve McCraw.

Martin, who began at DPS as a highway patrol trooper in 1990, was named to the top agency post by the Public Safety Commission on Wednesday.

His tenure will begin Dec. 1.

“I just can’t imagine a better choice that we have made than Freeman Martin today,” Public Safety Commissioner Nelda Luce Blair said. “We have a lot of confidence in you going forward, Freeman.”

Martin was named to the job after McCraw, who led the agency for 15 years, announced his retirement in August.

McCraw’s tenure was shaped in recent years by DPS’ faulty response to the Uvalde school shooting, which prompted demands for his resignation. He also led the agency’s role in implementing Operation Lone Star, Texas’ border crackdown. McCraw oversaw several major changes to the agency, including the deployment of state law enforcement officials to secure the border and the implementation of body cameras on all DPS troopers on patrol.

Martin, a native of New Deal, a town outside Lubbock, began his career at DPS as a trooper in East Texas. He served as a sergeant in the Narcotics Service in Houston before becoming a Texas Ranger. He was named regional commander for the central Texas region in 2014, then appointed to deputy director of DPS in 2018.

He steered DPS’ role in Operation Lone Star and led the agency’s response to several high-profile crises, according to DPS, including Hurricane Harvey and the 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs. He also established a Texas Anti-Gang Center in San Antonio and oversaw various programs aimed at supporting local law enforcement.

Martin has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and graduated from Northwestern University's School of Police Staff and Command.

The DPS director is appointed by and “directly accountable” to the Public Safety Commission, whose five members are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the state Senate for staggered six-year terms, according to the position’s job listing.

DPS maintains statewide law enforcement authority and implements a number of administrative programs, including driver licensing. The director is tasked with providing “strategic direction and oversight” for the agency’s workforce of more than 11,000 employees, and managing a biennial budget of over $2 billion, according to the listing.