The 12th Man of the South Main Alliance
A native of West Texas who still favors a cowboy hat and boots in the boardroom, Leroy ÒShafeÓ Shafer innately strives to do better while never forgetting to include his community as he moves forward. He brings a substantial, "no-fluff" wisdom to his role as Chief Operating Officer Emeritus of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo (HLSR). Raised in Trent, Texas, Shafe’s connection to the HLSR is deeply personal; he began showing steers at age 12 and was even a 1959 calf scramble winner at the old Sam Houston Coliseum downtown. A proud Texas A&M Aggie, he is also a former Army captain and helicopter pilot who served during the Vietnam War. He credits his military experience and Aggie core values for shaping his approach to selfless service and strategic leadership.
“If you don't give the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo a shot, don't set foot on the A&M campus as long as I'm there.” How a jet engine fire and an unexpected road trip changed the course of Shafe’s life.
During his 41-year tenure, he and his colleagues transformed the Rodeo into a global powerhouse through hard work and smart thinking. Long before simultaneous live broadcasts and streaming, Shafe and his team managed to bring live feeds into the Astrodome’s skyboxes. Then, in 1978, the Rodeo delivered live video of the rodeo arena via a giant screen to nearly the whole Astrodome, a full two years before the first Diamond Vision screen appeared in Dodger Stadium. Innovating again, he built in-house AV studios in the Dome. The Rodeo is still the AV contractor for Reliant Stadium, and the money those contracts earn goes directly to the Rodeo’s more than $320 million in scholarship funds.
Hear Shafe explain how the Rodeo expanded from skyboxes and closed-circuit TV to the big screen filling the Dome.
Shafe joined the South Main Alliance (SMA) board in 2003 and served as Chairman in 2005. He champions the Alliance as the perfect avenue for regional leaders to dismantle silos and give institutions, neighborhoods and development entities a collective voice and a common community for institutional networking, communication and problem-solving. “When I was chief operating officer of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo,” he says, “especially one year when I was also the interim CEO and interim president of the organization, doing all three jobs, I had a great deal of comfort that if any crisis happened, I had allies. I had a tremendous staff; I had, at that point, 30,000 volunteers from all walks of life in Houston. But more importantly, I had the South Main Alliance. I had those people at the Medical Center, at Rice University, at the Museum District, at the zoo, at the park... If I needed help, I knew where I could get it. I knew they’d be there.”