Dan Flowers, PE.

DAN FLOWERS, PE, BECAME director of the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department in January 1994.

During his tenure as director, Flowers has overseen several significant milestones at the department. The majority of the projects from the 1991 Highway Improvement Program (HIP) were undertaken during his time as director. All of I-540 from I-40 northward to Fayetteville was completed, including Arkansas' only highway tunnel, the Bobby Hopper Tunnel on his watch.

He also oversaw the development, implementation and completion of the Interstate Rehabilitation Program (IRP), which was the first Arkansas highway program to utilize bond financing in nearly 50 years and resulted in more than half of Arkansas' interstate highway miles being rehabilitated or reconstructed. The redesign and reconstruction of several of Arkansas' welcome centers was started and is continuing under his guidance.

Flowers is from Batesville, where he graduated from Batesville High School. He is married to the former Sara Stobaugh of Hughes. They have two daughters, one son, three grandsons and three granddaughters.

He began his career with the AHTD by working as a summer employee for four years in the department's resident engineer office at Batesville.

After graduation from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville in June 1969 with a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering, he completed the department's engineering orientation program and was assigned as a planning engineer in the Planning & Research Division. He worked in a total of eight other engineering and management positions within the department prior to becoming director.

Flowers is active in transportation on the regional and national levels. A past president of the Southeastern Association of State Highway & Transportation Officials, he was elected president a second time in August 2009.

He is a past president of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, and he has served as chairman of the American Association's Special Committee on International Activities Coordination.

Prior to being president, Flowers served as chairman of the association's subcommittee on design, standing committee on highways and as the association's vice president.

Currently he is co-chairman of the joint committee of the AASHTO, Associated General Contractors of America and American Road and Transportation Builders Association.

Flowers has served as a member of the World Road Association's Committee on Performance of Road Administrations. He has also served as a transportation adviser to the board of directors of the Mississippi River Trail Corp., and he has served on several committees of the Transportation Research Board. He currently serves on the Second Strategic Highway Research Program's Oversight Committee.

He served a four-year term on the Arkansas Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors and is a past president of the board.

Flowers is a registered professional engineer and a member of the UA's Academy of Civil Engineering. He was elected vice president of AACE in April 2008. He also serves on the Mack-Blackwell Transportation Center's Professional Advisory Board at the university.

In August 2001, the Arkansas Chapter of the Associated General Contractors presented Flowers with its most prestigious award-the Skill, Integrity and Responsibility Award (SIR) for his leadership contributions to the enhancement of the construction industry.

Flowers was inducted as an honorary member into the civil engineering honors fraternity, Chi Epsilon Fraternity, at UA in November 2002.

In September 2004, Flowers was awarded the AASHTO's prestigious Thomas H. McDonald Memorial Award for exceptional contribution to the art and science of highway engineering.

Flowers was also honored in October 2004 by the UA's Department of Civil Engineering when the Dan Flowers Education and Training Facility was dedicated in his name. The facility is part of the Mack-Blackwell National Transportation Study Center at the university.

In April 2005, Flowers received the Distinguished Engineering Alumni Award from the University of Arkansas College of Engineering.

Flowers received in 2006 the Jack Evans Regional Leadership Award presented by the Metroplan Board of Directors for his work in the passage of Act 2275 of 2005, the Regional Mobility Authority Act.

In 2008, Flowers was elected vice president of the UA Department of Civil Engineering's Academy of Civil Engineering.

In October 2008, he received the George S. Bartlett Award, which is presented by the AASHTO, the Transportation Research Board and the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. The award is presented to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to highway progress.

In April 2010, Flowers was elected president of the UA's Academy of Civil Engineering for 2010-2011.