On February 1st, Allen King, P.E., was selected as acting Office Chief for the Office of Concrete Pavement for Caltrans. He steps into the post formerly held by Kuo-Wei Lee, who retired on January 20th.
King g
raduated from the University of the Pacific in 2008 with a double major in Civil Engineering and Engineering Management. He went on to earn his Master’s degree in Transportation Management from San Jose State University.
While working on his degrees, King performed surveying work for San Joaquin County and interned with the City of Stockton. It was during this time he developed an interest in bridge construction.
When King joined Caltrans in 2008, he went into Structure Construction and for the next eight years worked on projects in Districts 4, 5 and 10, performing inspection work on bridges, retaining walls, overhead sign structures, and other concrete structures during his first three years. Once he was licensed in 2011, he became a Structure Representative and led a team of engineers responsible for delivering multi-million-dollar projects in District 10.
In 2016, he joined Materials Engineering and Testing Services (METS) as a Structural Materials Representative. King worked his way up to acting Senior Bridge Engineer in 2018, and then Senior Bridge Design Engineer soon thereafter. In November 2018, King joined the Pavement Program in the Office of Asphalt Pavements as Senior Transportation Engineer for the Asphalt Recycling branch, and the technical lead for asphalt pavement smoothness.
Over the past four+ years, he has helped guide the incentivized asphalt pavement smoothness specification to becoming finalized. He has also led the effort, partnering with industry, to update several of the cold recycling specs in Section 30, which had been in limbo, utilizing the most recent research and innovations from Caltrans’ industry and academic partners.
In his new role, King stated that he is interested in developing and delivering training for the Concrete Pavement Team, continuing work on specifications updates, updating guidance manuals, and continuing to partner with industry and academia, and with other offices and divisions within the department.
Congratulations, Allen, on your new position from everyone here at SWCPA!