Debbie Wilkes has participated in Texas statewide transition planning since 1989. In 2010, after 36 years in public education, she retired from Richardson Independent School District where she had been Director of Special Education. She has written an Employment/Social Skills curriculum that is implemented at the University of Texas Southwestern Hospital and several school districts in Texas. Through the University of North Texas she helped develop a training curriculum for DARS providers. Ms. Wilkes is an Associate with the Institute on Person Centered Practices=, a collaborative partnership between the Center on Disability Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and the Center on Disability and Development at Texas A&M University. With this organization she developed a Person Centered Transition Assessment that is being used throughout Texas.

She presently provides support to parents, school districts, universities supported employment agencies and day programs in the area of instruction, transition; work-based learning, employment, assessment, self-advocacy and person directed planning.