Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Announces Leadership Change
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections Director Annette Chambers-Smith has announced that she will be leaving the Department for a role in Gov. Mike DeWine’s office, where she will offer her expertise on ongoing criminal justice initiatives.
Chambers-Smith has been the Director of the ODRC since 2019 and has over 30 years of correctional experience. During her tenure as ORDC Director, she prioritized staff safety, security and wellness by establishing the Office of Employee Support Services, implementing an extensive body-worn camera system and introducing a contraband interdiction strategic plan in ORDC facilities. Chambers-Smith also worked to improve post-release success for offenders, expand prison opiate treatment including the use of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and increase public safety by enacting changes to the state’s parole system and introducing a Violence Predictor Risk Assessment tool to help parole officers focus on high-risk supervisees.
Among many recognitions over her career, Chambers-Smith received the E.R. Cass Correctional Achievement Award — the highest honor awarded by the American Correctional Association (ACA) — in 2025. She is the Chair of the ACA’s Committee on Standards, Vice Chairwoman of the RecoveryOhio Advisory Council and serves on Gov. DeWine’s Ohio Human Trafficking Task Force. In 2023, she was appointed to the National Institute of Corrections Advisory Board.
Chambers-Smith will transition to the governor’s office on March 28, and ORDC Assistant Director Ed Banks will assume the role of Interim Director upon her departure.
Banks began his career with the Department in 1994 as a correctional officer at the Trumbull Correctional Institution. He moved on to hold several positions at the Belmont Correctional Institution before serving as Warden of the Hocking and Noble Correctional Institutions. Banks was appointed as the ORDC’s Managing Director of Organizational Development in 2012, and worked as the Deputy Director of Human Resources for both ODRC and the Ohio Department of Youth Services before being appointed to the Regional Director position in the Office of Prisons. Banks was named ORDC Assistant Director in December of 2022.