A Message From COMBAT's New Director

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2025

Jackson County COMBAT has for more than 30 years been committed to our community’s well-being, through promoting public safety and equitable access to prevention and treatment services.

I am certainly honored to have been chosen to serve as COMBAT’s new Director, but I’m stepping into this role with deep humility because COMBAT’s mission requires our constant vigilance and resiliency.  At the same time, I’m filled with great hope for what we can accomplish together. 

I intent to start by listening.

Over the next 90 days, I will be engaging with community members, service providers, law enforcement partners, public health leaders, and our many COMBAT-funded agencies to hear their ideas, identify problems, and brainstorm solutions. I’ve got questions to which I will be seeking answers: What’s working? Where are there gaps in service that need to be closed? How can we better align our resources for real impact?

I want to understand the strengths we must build upon and the barriers we must remove, especially those that make it harder for grassroots organizations and families to access support.

This process is not about quick fixes but about co-creating a strategic path forward that focuses on that core mission to reduce violence and substance use through prevention, treatment, and targeted intervention. It’s also about developing greater transparency, trust, and shared ownership in how these critical anti-crime tax dollars can best be utilized to save lives across Jackson County.

I appreciate the contributions of my COMBAT predecessors and their dedication to serving our community. COMBAT’s work, though, never ends.

Since its founding, COMBAT has been more than a tax fund—it’s a promise to the people to do the work to improve public safety and public health throughout the entire county. I’m grateful for the opportunity to lead this next chapter and look forward to working with all of you to ensure that promise is fulfilled.

In service and solidarity,

Murray L. Woodard II
Jackson County COMBAT Director


COMBAT Director Murray Woodard

COMBAT Director Murray Woodard

Murray Woodard comes to COMBAT with extensive background in the non-profit sector. He spent six years with Kauffman Scholars Inc. and then nearly nine years at the Kauffman Foundation. In February of 2024, after two years as Engagement Manger at Kauffman Foundation, he became Chief Executive Officer of the BLAQUE Promise Project, a Kansas City 501(c)(4) organization that advocates for educational equity policies. Woodard, a proud graduate of Southeast High School in Kansas City, earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology in University of Central Missouri and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Phoenix.