The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission’s construction engineering manager-east, Alan R. Williamson Jr., P.E., has been named the Central Pennsylvania Engineers Week Council’s 2025 Engineer of the Year.

Starting in 2012, Williamson led two of the turnpike’s largest initiatives in its nearly 85-year history — converting to cashless, all-electronic tolling and launching open road tolling.

In an ORT system, tolls are charged electronically as customers drive at highway speeds without slowing down or stopping beneath overhead structures — called gantries — located between interchanges. Equipment hung on the gantries and installed within the pavement processes E-ZPass or Toll By Plate transactions.

This past January, Williamson oversaw the successful debut of new open road tolling east of Reading and along the entire Northeast Extension.