Doug Smith Bio

DOUG SMITH, Affiliate Coach Trainer

WAVE Training & Consulting LLC

Doug Smith, MSSW, ACC, TICC is the Managing Partner of D-Degree Coaching and Training, and helps leaders develop innovative approaches to complex problems, through creative facilitation experiences and individual/group coaching. He helps organizations create leadership pipelines and improve the leadership capacity of all team members. Doug specializes in developing the leadership potential of people with lived experience of mental illness, past trauma, and incarceration. The foundation of his work is partnering with organizations to create trauma-informed leadership practices. 

Doug has more than 12 years’ experience in mental health and justice policy, as a policy expert at the Texas House of Representative and later at the Texas Center on Justice and Equity. He developed a statewide coalition of people impacted by the justice system, training and supporting them to become leaders in advocacy, in their careers, and in their lives. Doug has more than eight years’ experience serving as an Adjunct Professor of Social Policy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Doug helped to launch the Austin/Travis County Sobering Center, serving as Board Member and Treasurer. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Pretrial Justice Institute. Doug earned his master’s in social work from the University of Texas at Austin. He graduated from Erickson Coaching International and is accredited by the International Coaching Federation (ACC). He is also certified in Trauma-Informed Coaching. Doug also has lived experience of mental illness, substance use disorder, and incarceration, and these experiences drive his passion to help people achieve their fullest potential. He is a husband and proud father of three adult children and three rescue pups.