Bob Wessels served as court manager of the Harris County Courts system from 1974 to 2011. Currently, Bob is Vice Chair of Texas’s Judicial Committee on Information Technology; on the Board of SEARCH—The National Consortium for Criminal Justice Information and Statistics; program coordinator for the Executive Forum for Criminal Justice Planners; and a fellow of the Institute for Court Management. He has taught as an adjunct professor on numerous topics and is a founding member of the Texas Association for Court Administration (TACA); the National Association for Court Management (NACM), of which he is also a past president; and JMI’s Urban Court Managers Network. Mr. Wessels is the recipient of many awards, including the Justice Charles W. Barrow Award; NCSC’s Distinguished Service Award and Warren E. Burger Award for Excellence in Court Administration; NACM’s Award of Merit; the Chair’s Award of Excellence from the Judicial Section, State Bar of Texas; JMI’s Ernest C. Friesen Award; SEARCH’s Gary R. Cooper Meritorious Service Award; and the Robert O. Dawson Award, presented by the Texas Indigent Defense Commission. In 1996, TACA created the Bob Wessels Scholarship. He received his BBA from Sam Houston State University and an MA from the University of Houston, Clear Lake.