Innovative Leaders: Jessica O’Donnell & Carl Hazlewood

by Marissa Nuñez

Jessica O’Donnell

Jessica O’Donnell started with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) in 2007 when she joined the Region I Director’s Office as a clerk while attending Sam Houston State University.

In those 17 years, O’Donnell has learned as much as she can about the agency and its operations. Currently, she serves as the deputy director of Programs for the Manufacturing, Agribusiness, and Logistics (MAL) Division.

She attributes that much of her learning came during her time with the Correctional Institutions Division (CID) in which she served in several capacities.

“The bulk of my career was with CID, but I got the opportunity to transfer divisions and learn something new,” O’Donnell said. “I’ve always been told that if you want to understand the big picture you need to move around.” 

One person O’Donnell said played a significant role in her growth is former CID division deputy director and MAL division director Billy Hirsch, who retired in 2023. Hirsch instilled in her a vision of leading a team and always looking for new and innovative ways to enhance her role.

“For me, innovation happens when you can take a step back and understand your mission,” O’Donnell said. “Mr. Hirsch made a point of always making sure everybody understood how their position plugs into the agency’s mission. So, I have a really firm understanding of how I help promote public safety and assist in that part of the mission.”

Through her position, O’Donnell collaborates daily with other divisions within the agency to build new programs for inmates, as well as employees, to help them grow in their field. Recently, MAL worked with other divisions and outside agencies such as Windham School District to develop the Skills Demonstrations and Career Expos.

These expos, held at units around the state, allow inmates to show off their newly learned skills in different trades to prospective employers. It’s one of many new initiatives she has helped establish and is part of the agency’s 2030 Plan.

“One of our goals is to have 95 percent of the inmates employed before their release. One of MAL’s big strategies is educating employers. We bring employers into our facilities to the Skills Demonstrations and Career Expos, so they get the opportunity to come in and watch inmate job skills firsthand. We also bring them in through individual tours.”

For O’Donnell, innovation and collaboration go hand-in-hand. By working with fellow TDCJ staff, they examined programming needs and brainstormed ways to bring their ideas to fruition.

“Our 2030 goals are looking at employability. How do we make an individual more employable?” O’Donnell said. “We are looking at more education opportunities and at certification expansions because that’s another way we can articulate to employers the skills of these individuals.”

Whether it’s considering ways to upgrade equipment used by MAL or exploring new education and career channels for inmates, O’Donnell strives each day to set the standard for employment among corrections agencies.

“We want to be great. When you settle for the status quo, you remove that opportunity to be great and to accomplish the mission to the fullest extent,” O’Donnell said. “You’ve got to be able to reflect and be honest with yourself about where you and your team are and where you would like to be. You have to be able to pull in different individuals with different backgrounds and perspectives and make them feel empowered to help move you towards that goal.”

Carl Hazlewood

Innovation is the birth of new ideas that help bring about change and new beginnings for organizations. For Carl Hazlewood, director of the Records Management Department, finding new ways of streamlining different services in the agency is what he strives to do to help the agency evolve.

Hazlewood began his career in the Information Technology Division (ITD) and served in several positions working to improve computer data systems, as well as bring in new technology to the Hughes and Murray Units. In his current role, and as part of the Correctional Officer Technology Committee, he continues to bring new technology to the agency to better connect TDCJ employees throughout the state.

“That committee is really about finding technology to help our correctional staff. I am starting to go to units to talk to correctional staff and get their feedback about what type of technology would help them,” Hazlewood said. “One of my plans with that is to transition those paper-driven processes to a digital form.”

One project he recently helped complete with that goal in mind is the new Employee Digital Timekeeping, which allows officers and staff to scan their agency identification card when they arrive and leave for work each day to ensure employee’s time is reported accurately.

The project was a collaborative effort between agency divisions and initially started in the beginning of 2020; however, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic the project came to a halt.

The project resumed in 2021 with Hazlewood and ITD staff brainstorming how they can take the time application on the TDCJ website and bring it to the unit level.

“We started spitballing ideas and one of the ideas was that since we have the time app, is there any way that we can move our units up to the 21st century and have time clocks and do that with their work IDs,” Hazlewood said. “We started trying to figure out how we can do that, and in 2022 the idea became a little more solid.”

The implementation of the new digital time clocks eliminated the need for paper timesheets and have been fully installed in all units throughout the state. Hazlewood said the feedback from officers and unit staff has been positive.

The completion of the project allowed Hazlewood and his team to get one step closer to accomplishing the agency’s 2030 goal of reducing the use of paper and other supplies.

“The transition to paperless processes is one of our 2030 goals and we’ve talked about a number of different ideas,” Hazlewood said. “One of them being the employee mobile app for employees to access their paystubs online.”

Hazlewood looks forward to working with other divisions to continue to bring the agency into more efficient processes in various aspects of its daily operations, whether that is employee time keeping, communication, inmate record databases, and others. For Hazlewood, being innovative is about looking at ways to use new technology to further enhance the agency’s efforts of accomplishing its mission of public safety and rehabilitation.

“The goal is to find technology to make things easier for correctional staff. My first step is to go to the source, the boots on the ground and ask them,” Hazlewood said. “Technology is a part of all of our lives and people have a better understanding of what it can do and how it can make your life easier. I believe they can be a valuable resource for us to get their insight.”