Bob Hillman, DVM, Texas’ state veterinarian and executive director of the Texas Animal Health Commission (TAHC), has announced that he will retire December 31, ending his nearly seven-year tenure with the state’s livestock and poultry health regulatory agency. The TAHC’s 13 governor-appointed commissioners will establish a committee to conduct a nationwide search to fill Hillman’s position.

“I have wrestled with the decision to retire, but it is time to put family first,” Hillman told TAHC commissioners in his announcement. “Texas has made progress in many of our livestock health programs, and we have challenges to overcome in others. Just about every major disease event that has occurred in the United States in the past 6½ years has impacted Texas and our livestock industries. With the support of TAHC commissioners and the livestock and poultry industry, we have addressed and resolved many of these issues.”

“During disease outbreaks or when addressing regulatory issues, Dr. Hillman has had to make difficult decisions based on science to regain or maintain the health and marketability of Texas’ livestock and poultry,” said Ernie Morales, TAHC chairman and the feedlot representative on the commission. “Our search committee will look within the TAHC and across the nation for the veterinarian who will best fill the enormous gap created by Dr. Hillman’s retirement.”

Hillman, a large animal veterinarian for 35 years, served a short stint with the USDA in Texas, and worked in private practice in both Texas and Idaho. For more than two decades, he served with the Idaho Department of Agriculture, 13 of those as the state veterinarian, during which he wrangled with controversial disease issues, including addressing the brucellosis infection in bison and elk in the Greater Yellowstone Area. He also worked closely with the state veterinarians and the cattle industry in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, and with Mexican livestock health officials to control cattle tuberculosis in Mexico, in order to prevent the spread of the disease by Mexican feeder and roping cattle imported to the United States