craig hernanDez Award-winning Texas game warden fell into perfect career

Award-winning Texas game warden fell into perfect career

B Y Ph IL rIDDL e

the unlikely combination of meticulous planning and being in the right place at the right time gave Craig Hernandez the opportunity at an unexpected career— and recognized excellence.

The 1999 Tarleton graduate has worked as a Texas game warden for 14 years, the last two as an instructor at the agency’s training academy near Hamilton. Hernandez is also part of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s elite Underwater Search and Recovery Dive Team.

Named the Sikari-Safari International Wildlife Officer of the Year in 2014, Hernandez has won several honors for his work. His was tabbed the TPWD Outstanding Team of the Year in 2016.

His important first step in a circuitous route toward becoming a game warden came when 17-year-old Hernandez joined the Army as a way to later pay for a college education.

When his military stint ended, he, his half-brother, Tarleton graduate Aaron Wilson, and father toured Texas colleges looking for the right fit. Both found it at Tarleton.

“We started traveling to colleges across the state,” he said, “and I don’t think we missed one. At the time Dr. (Don) Knotts was the Dean of Agriculture. It was his personal touch on the day we showed up to campus that was the difference.

“He said, ‘Let‘s go get in the truck and drive out to the ag farm.’ He spent about half his day with us. That influenced me.”

At Tarleton, Hernandez traveled a busy road, participating as a Purple Poo, with the Plowboys, ROTC and the Student Alumni Association. Afterwards, he took his Agricultural Services and Development degree and began a job selling farm equipment for a Waco business.

He covered three states and, within a few years, he was looking for a career that involved less travel.

By chance, he ran into fellow Tarleton alumnus Tim Walker, a game warden, who invited him on a ride-along.

“The first night I rode with Tim, I knew this was for me,” Hernandez said. “It’s a good balance between the military, because I enjoy the discipline, and my rural agriculture background. It combined all the things I already knew.”

Graduating from the Game Warden Training Center in 2002, he worked in Hunt County for six years before transferring to Freestone County.

“A drowning occurred there on Richland Chambers Lake,” he said. “We did not have the resources to make the recovery and we were counting on other agencies. This was nothing new, but it was definitely the catalyst that allowed our supervisors to say, ‘we’re going to create our own dive team.’”

Currently a lieutenant at the training academy, Hernandez is qualified to teach cadets firearms, defensive tactics, field sobriety testing, communication and problem solving, multiculturalism and basic Parks and Wildlife code.

He regularly turns to his Tarleton education in his position.

“I got my minor in human resource management,” Hernandez said. “I did that intentionally to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from what most people would think of when they think of agriculture.

“Having that agricultural background gave me enough insight to be able to understand and speak on a landowner’s level. Right now I’m in management, so that human resources side of my education is something I deal with every day.”

Hernandez regularly deals with a workplace colored with a decided purple tinge.

“We just started a new cadet class,” he said. “When I teach my first class, I tell them our major graduated from Tarleton; I graduated from Tarleton; Brad Gwynn, another of our lieutenants graduated from Tarleton; one of the guys who just promoted out, Jason Bussey, graduated from Tarleton. So of eight staff members, four last year were from Tarleton. “I tell the cadets, ‘If you ever want to promote and do anything good, you have to be from Tarleton. Sorry about the rest of you guys. I’m sure you made a great effort, but…”