2026 Hall of Fame Inductees
JALISSA SIMS
Management Representative
Jalisa Sims has years of meaningful experience from serving in management positions, where she consistently applied her federal procurement and contracting expertise in ways that supported collaboration, sound judgment, and effective labor-management engagement. She is currently a Contracting Officer / Construction and A&E Team Lead at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service and has served in this capacity since 2023. She operates as a primary point of contact for federal contract opportunities, acquisitions, and regional forest service projects—managing everything from infrastructure upgrades to resource management agreements. Prior to transitioning, Jalisa was a Contracting Officer at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Johnson Space Center. Her tenure at NASA stretched over a decade where she received her Federal Acquisition Certification and included leadership roles such as Cost/Price Analyst, Center Industrial Relations Officer (CIRO), Contract Specialist, and Contracting Officer.
Jalisa earned her Master of Business Administration from Texas Southern University in 2016. She also holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Accounting and Finance from the Southern University and Agricultural & Mechanical College at Baton Rouge where was an active member of the National Association of Black Accountants (NABA) and Beta Sigma Gama.
Jalisa joined the TXLMC board in 2018 and immediately assumed key leadership roles, serving as program committee chair, conference co-chair, and conference chair. Under her leadership, she helped secure more than $50,000 in sponsorships at a time when TXLMC was recovering financially. She helped important modernization efforts for communications which required diplomacy, persistence, and strong change-management skills. Shortly after she assumed her role as conference chair, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted conference plans and she worked to address and mitigate significant contractual and financial risks. Thereafter, Jalisa helped guide TXLMC through a virtual conference, working with FMCS who hosted the event on Zoom. The following year, with Jalisa’s continued support, the conference transitioned back to in-person.
Aside from her professional life, Jalisa is active in her church and community. She is a long-time volunteer of Apollo’s Learning Center which offers tutoring, mentoring, financial literacy, career services, college readiness, STEM, counseling, food services, senior services, and health & wellness initiatives.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
JIM PEARSON
Labor Representative
Jim Pearson was born in Wichita Falls, Texas but was raised in Austin from the age of three years. He worked for or was associated with the health and human service system for thirty-nine years. He worked as a direct care staff, an employee relations officer and a human resources director.
He is currently the Director of Training & Competency Development at Austin State Hospital where he worked for a combined total of twenty-one years. He was the co-founder of the CWA/Texas State Employees Union and served as one of the union’s first organizers for ten years. During his tenure with the union, he was on the Executive Board of the Local 6186 and was a representative to the Austin AFL-CIO Central Labor Council.
Jim is a certified mediator. He was recognized nationally as an innovator in employee relations methodology with his inclusion in “Who’s Who in the South and Southwest,” “Who’s Who in Finance and Industry,” “Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America,” and “Who’s Who in America.” In 1993, he received the Austin-Travis County Dispute Resolution Center’s first “Peacemaker Award in Healthcare” for his endeavors at Austin State Hospital. Mr. Pearson continues to adhere to the novel idea that employees who feel valued and are fairly compensated provide better services. He is still an active member of CWA/Texas State Employees Union Local 6186.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
WALTER L DARR, JR.
Neutral Representative
Walter L. Darr, Jr. brings more than 36 years of leadership and labor-management experience across the public and
private sectors, with a distinguished career spanning labor relations, mediation, collective bargaining, arbitration,
facilitation, training, and leadership development.
He currently serves as Director of Policy for the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) at the U.S.
Department of Labor, where he provides strategic policy leadership in support of the agency’s mission to promote
transparency, financial integrity, democratic processes, and compliance within labor organizations, as well as oversight
of reporting and disclosure requirements related to labor-management relations.
Over the course of his career, Walter has been widely called upon to moderate complex discussions and deliver
practical, experience-driven insights on leadership, organizational effectiveness, and conflict resolution—particularly in
highly unionized and regulated environments.
Following his retirement from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service (FMCS) in September 2025, Walter
served as President & CEO of National Mediation & Conflict Solutions from October through December 2025. He
subsequently led his private practice, Darr & Associates, from January 2026 until joining the Department of Labor in
March 2026, advising labor organizations, management teams, and executive leadership on collective bargaining
strategy, dispute resolution, leadership effectiveness, organizational resilience, and change management across both
National Labor Relations Act and Railway Labor Act frameworks.
Previously, Walter served as a Field Operations Manager with FMCS, where he supervised more than 30 mediators and
directed operations across a multi-region area covering approximately 40–45% of the United States, including the
Southern, Southeastern, and Midwestern regions, with geographic responsibility spanning from Texas to the Carolinas
and from the Gulf Coast into the central Midwest, as well as portions of the West. He also served as Commissioner for
Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana.
Earlier in his career, he spent nearly five years as a Mediator with the National Mediation Board (NMB), supporting
labor-management relations in industries governed by the Railway Labor Act and serving as an instructor in Dominican
University’s Master’s Program in Conflict Resolution.
Walter has contributed to the broader field through scholarship, including co-authoring “Options for Improving
Negotiations and Dispute Resolution: A Report of the Working Group on Airline Labor Relations,” in collaboration
with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and MIT’s Global Airline Industry Study.
He holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, has completed advanced training in Interest-Based
Bargaining and Grievance Mediation, and earned a Certificate in Alternative Dispute Resolution from the University of
Houston Law Center.
Actively engaged in the profession, Walter serves on the Board of Directors of the Texas Labor Management
Conference and as Second Vice President of the Houston Chapter of the Labor and Employment Relations Association.