Oklahoma Turnpike Authority
Please join us as we host the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority. OTA executive director Joe Echelle will share information about Oklahoma's system of toll roads, share details about the recent conversion to a cashless system and explain what's included in OTA's ACCESS Oklahoma long-range plan, ultimately making it easier for drivers to travel around the state.
Joe Echelle is the executive director of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority and was appointed to this position by the OTA Board in March 2024. Echelle oversees an agency responsible for maintaining 630 miles of turnpikes throughout Oklahoma. Echelle began working at OTA in 2016 as the Director of Construction, managing the authority’s annual capital improvement construction projects and the $1.2 billion Driving Forward Turnpike Improvement Program. He was promoted to assistant executive director in 2018 and became deputy director in July 2021.
He began his career with the Oklahoma Department of Transportation as an engineer in training in 2001. In 2003, he became a draftsman for ODOT and then a construction surveyor for the department in 2006. In 2008, he was promoted to resident engineer in Stillwater and subsequently advanced to be the construction engineer for ODOT’s Division 4, managing more than $200 million in annual construction projects. He was instrumental in the construction of the Interstate 40 Crosstown project in Oklahoma City along with the deconstruction and bridge beam recycling efforts of the old crosstown expressway bridge.
Echelle, a registered professional engineer, has received several awards for highway construction and design from the American Concrete Paving Association and the Asphalt Paving Association. He sits on the board of the Oklahoma Highway Construction Materials Technician Certification Board and is a member of the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association.
Echelle worked as an adjunct faculty member at Oklahoma State University, his alma mater, teaching surveying to more than 1,100 civil engineering and construction management majors from 2008 to 2020. He earned a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Oklahoma State University in 2005 and an MBA in 2010.