Shannon W. Jones III Spent a Career Bringing Public Health to the Neighborhoods That Needed It Most

MANOR, Texas. In the summer of 2025, the Manor Lions Club Event Center filled with families, students and neighbors who had come to talk about their health care. Some people had warned that nobody would show up. Shannon W. Jones III had spent the weeks before knocking on doors, visiting churches and meeting with the mayor, and the full room proved him right.

That kind of groundwork has defined his career. A native of Nashville, Tennessee, Mr. Jones has spent decades in public health, with a focus on epidemiology, demographics and the gaps in care that leave some communities behind.

Before public health, he built a career in higher education. He held administrative posts at several historically Black colleges and universities, taught public administration at a university in Atlanta, and at Lincoln University served as assistant to the president and taught political science. He is a Woodrow Wilson Administrative Fellow.

He came to Austin in 1999 to join the Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services Department. He served as deputy director from 2011 to 2015 and then as director of Austin Public Health until he retired in April 2017. Under his leadership the department earned accreditation from the Public Health Accreditation Board, becoming one of the first five accredited public health agencies in Texas.

His influence also reached Washington. From 2011 to 2014 he chaired the national Advisory Council for the Elimination of Tuberculosis at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an appointment made by the Obama administration. He also served on a CDC study of early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of tuberculosis among African Americans, and helped secure funding to fight the disease in southern states and the Northeast.

At home he chaired the Austin and Travis County Community Health Assessment and Improvement Plan, which brought hospitals, public health agencies, social services and transportation groups together to address the social conditions that shape health. For more than a decade he also hosted "Health Talk," a radio program he founded on KAZI 88.7 FM.

After his retirement, the Travis County Commissioners Court appointed him to the Central Health Board of Managers, which oversees the Travis County Hospital District. He was reappointed in 2021 and served until December 31, 2025. During those eight years he helped guide the district's response to COVID 19 in Eastern Travis County, where he made sure residents could get testing, vaccines and reliable information, and he received his own vaccine publicly to encourage others.

He points to one partnership as the most important of his tenure: bringing clinical services to the Black Men's Health Clinic, which now serves thousands of people across the county. He also championed work with the Black Leaders Collective and supported the Hornsby Bend and Del Valle Health and Wellness Centers, which brought care closer to residents of Eastern Travis County.

Mr. Jones earned a Bachelor of Arts from Oglethorpe University in Atlanta, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Pittsburgh, and completed coursework toward a PhD in management and policy at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston. He is an associate of the American College of Healthcare Executives and a member of the National Forum for Black Public Administrators.

His honors include the 2015 Garnet F. Coleman Eternal Flame Award from the Central Texas African American Family Support Conference, an Outstanding Community Service award from a local NAACP chapter, and recognition as a Call to Action winner from the Austin Business Journal for his work with the Alliance for African American Health. He credits his parents, who took part in the civil rights movement, and his grandfather's leadership in that era for his commitment to service, and he has mentored many young men of color along the way.

Dynamo Times recognizes Shannon W. Jones III for a career spent making sure the communities most often overlooked are the first to be heard.