Knopp, Martin C
Associate Administrator for Operations
Martin C. Knopp was appointed as the Associate Administrator for Operations in January 2017. In this capacity, he provides national leadership for the management and operation of the surface transportation system, and is responsible for FHWA's efforts in the areas of congestion management, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Deployment, traffic operations, emergency management, and freight management and operations.
Prior to this, Martin served as the Director of Field Services (DFS) since November 2012 for the northeast region overseeing the corporate responsibilities of 13 Federal-aid Division offices in the northeast that include 264 employees and over $8 Billion in Federal-aid new funding annually. As one of four DFS leaders covering the Federal-aid across the country, the DFS supervise the Division Administrators and serve as a field deputy for the Executive Director as well as members on the agency's Leadership Team.
Prior to the DFS role, Martin entered Senior Executive Service when he was selected for service as the Division Administrator for both the Florida and the Puerto Rico Federal-aid Divisions (beginning in Jan 2009 and Jan 2010 respectively). In this role, he provided executive direction over the $2.33 B annual Federal-aid apportionment to Florida, 3rd largest Federal-aid program in the Nation, and the challenging Federal-aid programs for Puerto Rico ($150 M annually) and the U.S. Virgin Islands ($15 M). As Division Administrator, he led a professional staff of 42 permanent members in Tallahassee and 11 in San Juan to provide guidance to state and local funding recipients in identifying surface transportation needs and implementing national transportation goals.
From May 2003 to December 2008, Martin served as the FHWA Resource Center's Operations Technical Services Team Leader. Prior to rejoining the FHWA family in 2003, Martin served for 4 years as the Director, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Division at the Utah Department of Transportation where he developed and led the overall strategic direction of the ITS areas including the ITS preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. His experience with transportation for special events also includes the 1996 Centennial Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta and the 1990 Goodwill Games in Seattle in addition to a variety of consultations to foreign host countries.
Martin began his FHWA career as a Highway Engineer Trainee in 1989. His FHWA assignments along the way also included Congestion Management/Assistant Area Engineer, Traffic Management Engineer in the Georgia Division, Research / Traffic and Safety Engineer in the Utah Division, and ITS and Olympics Operations Engineer in the Utah Division.
Martin graduated from Pennsylvania State University in 1989 with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Civil Engineering and he is a licensed engineer in Utah.
