Takeback Leadership

Kirk Lane

Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership

Kirk Lane serves as the Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, an organization formed by the Arkansas Association of Counties and the Arkansas Municipal League to administer opioid abatement funds derived from opioid settlement funding awarded to the cities and counties of Arkansas. Before this, he served as the Arkansas State Drug Director from 2017 to 2022. Director Lane also has 33 years of experience in law enforcement serving with the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office and as the Chief of Police for the City of Benton, Arkansas.

He has attended the University of Virginia and University of Arkansas Little Rock. He is a graduate of the Arkansas Law Enforcement Academy, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Drug Commander’s Academy, FBI LEEDA, and the FBI National Academy 197th session.

Director Lane currently serves on the National Board of Directors for the National Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) and the Executive Board of the Gulf States High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program.

He is the recipient of numerous awards in his field including the 2021 Ramstead/ Kennedy Award for his leadership in the field of Recovery.

Tenesha Barnes

Deputy Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership

As Deputy Director of the Arkansas Opioid Recovery Partnership, Tenesha Barnes focuses on policy development and strategic planning to ensure effective service delivery and outcomes for the new initiative. She provides leadership in developing and implementing comprehensive prevention, treatment, and recovery strategies for substance use disorders at the city, county, and community levels.

Throughout her career, Barnes has worn many hats and has served as the National Association of Substance Abuse Directors (NASADAD) and National Prevention Network (NPN) representative for Arkansas, as well as the First Vice President for Internal Affairs, NPN Secretary, and executive board member. She was also Director of Prevention for the Arkansas Department of Human Services/Division of Aging, Adult, and Behavioral Health Services (DAABHS). In this position, she managed and oversaw all prevention activities, including the Substance Abuse Block Grant. She also served as the organizational liaison for the state’s counties, community prevention boards, non-profit organizations, community coalitions, schools, and free-standing entities.  She directly coordinated prevention activities through the State Opioid Responses Grant, Prevent Prescription Drug/Opioid Overdose-Related Deaths (PDO), First Responders-Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act Grants (FR-CARA), and the Strategic Prevention Framework-Partnerships for Success Grants (PFS).

Contributing seven years of experience as a community prevention champion and state prevention director, Barnes’s tenure helped address health disparities and create structural shifts within the prevention infrastructure for the state’s Behavioral Health and Substance Abuse Services Division..She also helped establish the CADCA membership for DAABHS/DHS in the state of Arkansas and is currently an active member.

Barnes holds a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Sociology from Henderson State University and a master’s degree in Human Resource Development and Leadership from Webster University.

Thomas Fisher

Arkansas State Drug Director

Arkansas State Drug Director Tom Fisher began his career in 1992 as a Deputy Sheriff with the Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office (FCSO). In 1997, he transitioned to a Special Agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the St. Louis and New Orleans Field Divisions.  Director Fisher spent seventeen years at the DEA Little Rock District Office. During his career he conducted complex drug conspiracy investigations, led domestic and international money laundering investigations, provided enhanced undercover activities throughout multiple states as a member of the Mobile Enforcement Team, and coordinated large scale enforcement operations and interstate investigations.  He served on the Tactical Diversion Squad for eight years, which investigated illicit drug distributors, negligent prescribers, and distributors of pharmaceutical controlled substances.  Director Fisher also served the DEA as a Supervisory Special Agent and Acting Assistant Special Agent in Charge, responsible for coordinating all DEA registrant-related investigations for the state of Arkansas, managing Domestic Cartel Initiatives and Violent Crime Reduction investigations, coordinating investigative assistance from United States Attorney’s Office, DEA Headquarters, Special Operations Division, foreign country offices, Office of Inspections, and Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Coordinators.  Director Fisher retired from DEA in December of 2021.  Prior to assuming his responsibilities as Arkansas State Drug Director, Director Fisher served as the Chief Operation Officer for Arkansas Redistributors (DEA Licensed Reverse Distributor) and an Overdose Response Strategy Analyst for the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), an Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) Overdose Response Strategy (ORS) initiative.

Fran Flenner

Former Arkansas State Drug Director

Fran Flener is the former Arkansas Drug Director and a founder of Arkansas Take Back on the state level. She was appointed to the position by Governor Mike Beebe in 2007. As Drug Director, Ms. Flener served as Chair of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Coordinating Council, which oversaw all planning, budgeting, and implementation of expenditures of state and federal funds used for alcohol and drug education, prevention, treatment, and law enforcement. She ensured that state drug policy was well-coordinated and developed programs to advance the effectiveness of Arkansas’s efforts to combat the burdens arising from substance abuse. She worked closely with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and planed and implemented federal drug initiatives in Arkansas.

Ms. Flener serves as a member of Community Anti-Drug Coalitions America (CADCA) Board of Directors, and as the board member representing the substance abuse treatment community nationwide for the National Methamphetamine Pharmaceuticals Initiative. In 2009, after advocacy which led to Arkansas’s inclusion, she was elected to the Executive Board of the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (GCHIDTA), whose mission is to target, disrupt and eliminate drug trafficking organizations.

Additionally, she serves as a steering committee member of the Arkansas Alliance for Drug-Endangered Children, and is a member of the Arkansas Legislative Task Forces on Substance Abuse Treatment and Prevention, the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Advisory Committee, and on numerous other decision-making bodies for state agencies and projects. Ms. Flener has built a coalition of over three hundred federal, state, local, and private agencies to address prescription abuse challenges in Arkansas.

Ms. Flener holds a Master of Science in Health and Bachelor of Science in Education degrees from Western Kentucky University. She has twice testified for the U. S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. In 2010, Ms. Flener was honored with the Arkansas Prevention Certification Board’s Prevention Ambassador of the Year award. In 2013, she received Out of the Dark, Inc.’s Humanitarian Award for her efforts in addressing state substance abuse and addiction challenges. She is a Certified Arkansas Law Enforcement Instructor in the specialty area of substance abuse.