Dina El-Tawansy was appointed the 35th director of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) by Gov. Gavin Newsom and sworn in on July 1, 2025.
El-Tawansy will manage a nearly $20 billion budget and more than 22,000 employees who oversee 50,000 lane miles of highway, maintain approximately 20,000 bridges, provide permitting for more than 400 public-use airports, fund three of Amtrak's busiest intercity rail services and provide transit support to more than 200 local and regional transit agencies.
El-Tawansy is focused on implementing Caltrans' mission, vision and goals; building and strengthening partnerships; and continuing to work toward multimodal, sustainable, safe and reliable transportation solutions that equitably serve all Californians.
Before her appointment, El-Tawansy served as the Bay Area District 4 director and was the first woman to hold that position. She managed a $2 billion budget of in-house and oversight investments and led a staff of nearly 3,400 employees.
Her responsibilities included the oversight of all highways, toll bridges and tunnels in the greater San Francisco Area and encompassed nine counties, including Napa, Sonoma, Solano, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara. Before that, she served as chief deputy district director for the same district.
While much of her three-decade Caltrans' career has been in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, El-Tawansy also served as acting assistant divisions chief for project and program management in HQ (Sacramento) and the deputy district director of operations and maintenance in D12 (Orange County).
El-Tawansy earned a B.S. degree in civil engineering from Cal Poly Pomona and an M.S. degree from Long Beach State University in construction management. She is a licensed professional engineer (PE) in the state of California and a project management professional (PMP).
