Les Rogers

Texas A&M FS
Les has over thirty-five years of experience in the field of emergency response from municipal, county and state fire services, law enforcement, EMS, emergency management and all hazards-risk incident management. He began his career in the resident program as a fire fighter - EMT for the Canyon Fire Department, serving the department while attending West Texas State University as both a paid and volunteer member. He continued serving and rose those the ranks to a company lieutenant and the Wild Land Strike Team Coordinator the last six years of his sixteen-year tenure. Les was recruited to fill one of the very first six Regional Fire Coordinator (RFC) positions for the Texas Forest Service (TFS). His background and reputation for his leadership and established relationships across West Texas from various responses and teaching at schools as well as an adjunct instructor for the Panhandle Regional Law Enforcement Academy allowed him to make the transition to the new position within TFS an easy one. Serving as an RFC for the first two years of his tenure with TFS, he provided leadership on fire and all risk issues in the fifty-two counties of northwestern Texas until being promoted to one of two Assistant Chief RFCs for the Agency. He served in that capacity for twelve years providing leadership and supervision over the seven regions of West and Northwest Texas which consisted of the one hundred sixteen counties in the western half of the state. This position allowed him to be directly involved with all fire issues and law enforcement, emphasizing on all risk incidents, as well as investigations. He was promoted to Chief and Department Head over the Agency’s Law Enforcement Department in January of 2012 where he is still heavily involved in the management of all hazard response and management for the Agency. Additionally, he has served on several national Incident Management Teams from the beginning of his career as a crew member and “Boss” or leader up through operations, plans and command. As a member of the Lone Star State Incident Management Team since 1998, he has served from Planning Section Chief, Operations Section Chief and Incident Commander. In 2003 he had the opportunity to serve for 100 continuous days as the State’s Area Command Plans Chief during the Shuttle Recovery where he directly worked with the ten Type I and eleven Type II IMT’s daily. He is currently one of the two ICs for the Lone Star State Incident Management Team where he has had the opportunity to lead the IMT during hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, Rita, Charlie and Ike deployments, Super-storm Sandy in NYC as well as many wild fires and the 2011 extended fire season. He is currently nationally qualified as a Liaison Officer, Operations Section Chief Type 2, Planning Section Chief Type 2 and Incident Commander Type 2. In February of 2019 he was asked to take over as Incident Response Department Head and Chief of Fire Operations under the Agency’s Forest Resource Protection Division. He has served in that role overseeing the Agency’s largest Department comprising of almost half of the Agency’s FTE count and operating budgets. He also continues to serve as the Interim Chief Law Enforcement Officer until a new Chief LEO is selected and appointed.