The Oklahoma Department of Transportation Executive Director Tim Gatz recently added two new hires to the department.
Sarah Penn was named General Counsel for the Oklahoma Department of Transportation in November 2019. Most recently, she served as the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality’s general counsel.
Before she served as general counsel at DEQ, Penn worked as the deputy general counsel and as an air quality attorney for the department. Previously, she worked for the Oklahoma Attorney General’s office in the Environmental Protection Unit, as chief of staff for former Corporation Commissioner Ed Apple and as a visiting professor of American Political Science and English in France.
Penn is a member of the Oklahoma Bar Association, contributing as a member of the Environmental Law Section and of the Government and Administrative Law Section.
Penn holds her Juris Doctorate, Master of Public Administration and bachelor’s degree in French from the University of Oklahoma. She is CLEET certified and was an officer for the DEQ reserve program.
Penn and her husband, James Rucker, live in Oklahoma City.
Holly Lowe was named Director of Audits in the Operations Review and Evaluation Division at the Oklahoma Department of Transportation in November 2019. Lowe comes to ODOT from the mortgage industry where she was a CEO. She brings more than 20 years of internal audit and oversight experience to ODOT.
Lowe has worked in many positions in private industry including as a chief audit executive, chief risk officer and chief ethics officer. Before moving to the private sector, she served as chief financial officer as well as acting director for the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, beginning her career there in 1994.
Lowe has been a member of the Institute of Internal Auditors and served for a time on its Board of Governors. She also has been a member of the Oklahoma Ethics Consortium and the Oklahoma Academy. In her home community of Newcastle, she has volunteered with the Newcastle Education Foundation.
Lowe earned her Bachelor of Business Administration in accounting from the University of Oklahoma in 1986. She went on to become a licensed CPA in 1990.
Lowe is married to Kevin Lowe of ODOT’s Office Services Division.
