AUSTIN — Freeman Martin will be the next director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, replacing longtime leader Steve McCraw, the Public Safety Commission announced Wednesday.
Martin, senior deputy director at DPS, will take over Dec. 1, leading a department with 11,000 employees and a $3.5 billion biennial budget.
McCraw, who has been head of DPS since 2009, announced his retirement in August.
The commission kicked off the search for a successor in September, when it approved minimum requirements for the role and created a four-week window for applicants to submit materials. A subcommittee chose three finalists for in-person and virtual interviews in October.
“It was a difficult choice in the sense that there were so many great candidates,” Steven Mach, commission chairman, said. “But it was a clear choice in the sense that we have the best candidate already in front of us.”
In his current role, Martin is involved in planning, managing and overseeing DPS activities and operations, according to his staff biography.
He began with DPS in 1990 as a Highway Patrol trooper in Winnie, in southeast Texas. He has also worked in Lubbock, Houston and Austin, serving as a Highway Patrol corporal, narcotics service sergeant and Texas Rangers sergeant, lieutenant, captain and major.
Martin was named regional commander for the Central Texas Region in 2014 and appointed deputy director of DPS in 2018. He has experience in executive protection, violent crime prevention operations, intelligence, counterterrorism, the border and homeland security.
Martin has a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and is a graduate of Northwestern University’s School of Police Staff and Command.
Nelda Luce Blair, a member of the commission, said the number of applicants was “surprising but also impressive.”
“We’ve done a large number of days and hours of work,” she said. “I just can’t imagine a better choice that we have made than Freeman Martin today.”