The Arkansas Highway Commission recently named Jared Wiley (above) to be director of the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) when Lorie Tudor, the agency’s current director, retires effective January 10, 2025.
[Above photo by ARDOT]
Wiley – who has served as ARDOT’S chief engineer for preconstruction since April 2023 – began his career with the agency as an engineering student intern in Hot Springs prior to being hired in December 2005 as a civil engineer in ARDOT’s Planning and Research Division.
He subsequently served as a consultant coordinator in the deputy director and chief engineer’s office, assistant division head of the Transportation Planning and Policy Division, division head of Program Management, and assistant chief engineer for planning before moving into his current position.
“The department is very fortunate to have a deep pool of highly qualified talent to choose from in selecting the next director,” noted said Alec Farmer, the highway commission’s chairman, in a statement. “We know that Jared will do an excellent job leading ARDOT and the entire team. The commission looks forward to working with him in this new role,”
“I am humbled and honored by the trust the commission has shown in me,” said Wiley, who holds a Bachelor of Science in engineering with an emphasis in civil engineering from Arkansas State University. “ARDOT is blessed with a great staff of dedicated public servants. The entire ARDOT team will continue to work diligently to improve the safety, efficiency and reliability of Arkansas’ transportation system.”
Wiley – who will become sixth person to serve in the director’s role at ARDOT in the past 52 years – also praised outgoing director Tudor for her mentorship during his career at the agency. “I commit to building on the legacy of cooperation and collaboration [she] established,” he said. “She has taught me and our staff many things over her 41-year career.”
Tudor – who has helmed ARDOT since 2020 – was the agency’s first female director. She began her 36-year career at what was then the Arkansas State Highway and Transportation Department in 1981 as a clerk typist, leaving the agency in 1995 to attend college; obtaining a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering from the University of Memphis.
She returned to ARDOT in 1998 as a civil engineer in the agency’s planning branch, eventually becoming assistant chief engineer for planning in 2011, then deputy director and chief operating officer in 2014, before being named the agency’s director four years ago.
Tudor also received the Alfred E. Johnson Achievement Award at the 2019 American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials Annual Meeting in recognition of her organizational, technical, and analytical skills that – over a nearly four-decade long career –transformed how the agency identifies, evaluates, selects, develops, tracks, manages, advertises, and awards transportation projects.
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