CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Rhonda Lawson says she has had good mentors rising through the ranks of the Texas Highway Patrol. Now she wants to be an example for others.
Lawson has become the Texas Department of Public Safety's first female Texas Highway Patrol captain since it was created in 1935.
"It is an opportunity to let other women in our agency know that this goal is attainable," Lawson said.
As a lieutenant, Lawson supervised 35 employees in Alice, Kingsville and Beeville. As of early September — when she received the promotion to lead the district headquartered in Corpus Christi– she supervises 100 area highway patrol troopers and 10 administrative employees and is responsible for the district's day-to-day operations.
Lawson also is the district disaster chairwoman for the Department of Public Safety during hurricanes and other natural disasters. She covers 17 area counties. When local jurisdictions have exhausted all of their resources during an emergency, she is the contact for them to request state resources.
Carey Matthews, Lawson's previous supervisor described her as one of his right-hand people and a dedicated employee.
"I can't say that I've had many people work for me through the years that have been as hard a worker as she has," said Matthews, commander of Texas Highway Patrol Region 4 in the Midland area.
Lawson was inspired to join the highway patrol while attending a friend's graduation from Department of Public Safety in 1996.
"There was an overwhelming feeling of camaraderie and confidence and an air of excellence," Lawson said. "I was already a police officer and I said 'I want to come work for the DPS.'"
Originally from Washington, D.C., Lawson has been with the DPS since 1997, when she graduated from training academy. She worked with the highway patrol in Fort Stockton, Hurst and Sherman before her move to Corpus Christi in 2004 — racking up promotions along the way, including sergeant in 2001 and lieutenant in 2004.
She acknowledges that challenges come with working in a male-dominated field, and although there has been an increase in females within the DPS since she started, she hasn't seen many females promoted to management positions.
"You have to prove that you are capable of doing the job, when everyone took the same path to get here. You cannot wear your emotions on your sleeve," Lawson said. "Whenever a female is promoted, some people will say that they only promoted this person because she is female, yet that female took the same test. It should be about your work ethics, your knowledge, and your ability to do the job."
As of October, there were 115 women in the Texas Highway Patrol, compared to 2,377 men.
Lawson first noticed the shortage of females when she went through training academy.
"Two years after I graduated there was a meeting with the captain wanting to know how to retain females in highway patrol," she said. "I said, 'As a recruit, I never saw any females coming to instruct us.' From that, the captain took the information to other captains and one of the things you started seeing were more females participating in the instruction for the recruits."
Lawson attributes the gender gap to the fact that women want to see accomplished women who are role models for them. Because there aren't many women in the Highway Patrol, it creates a kind of vicious cycle, she said.
"When you have people like you (other women) working with you, you can look to them to give you guidance," she said.