Assistant Executive Director for Field and District Operations

David Casteel, P.E., is the Assistant Executive Director for Field and District Operations. He oversees TxDOT's 25 districts and four Regional Support Centers and coordinates their activities to ensure funds are used to maximum efficiency. He is also responsible for management and control of the Construction, Maintenance and Traffic Operations divisions.

Casteel came to Austin from his position as district engineer for the San Antonio District of the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT). He was appointed district engineer Nov. 1, 2003. He has extensive experience in district operations and has developed projects in more than 60 Texas counties.

He joined TxDOT's Wichita Falls District in 1983 as a summer hire in the Graham Area Office. He moved to Bowie in 1985 as an engineer-in-training and later returned to Graham in 1987. Participating in TxDOT's Master of Science in Civil Engineering Program, he moved to College Station in 1990. There he worked as an associate research engineer on construction work-zone safety for the Texas Transportation Institute.

From 1991 to 1993, he returned to the Wichita Falls District as assistant area engineer in the Vernon Area Office. In 1993 he became area engineer in the Abilene District's Big Spring Area Office. He was promoted in 1994 as the district's director of transportation planning and programming. In April 1997 he was named district engineer for the Childress District. Before appointment to San Antonio, Casteel had been district engineer of the Corpus Christi District, a post he held since August 2001.

After earning his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from Texas A&M University in 1984, Casteel graduated from the university with his master's degree in 1990. He became a licensed professional engineer in 1989. In 1998, he graduated from the Governor's Executive Development Program at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas at Austin.

Casteel is married to Betsy Hart of Graham. They have a daughter, Katie, and a son, Louie.