Baker Valley native Chris Warner named interim ODOT director

Chris Warner, a Baker Valley native and Baker High School graduate, was named interim director of the Oregon Department of Transportation on June 2, putting an eastern Oregon connection at the center of one of the state’s most consequential agencies.

The appointment matters in Baker County because ODOT decisions shape the roads people use every day, from Interstate 84 to the state highways that carry freight, school buses, ranch traffic and medical travel across long rural distances. In Region 5, which ODOT identifies as Eastern Oregon, highway maintenance, snow response, bridge upkeep and construction delays are not abstract budget lines. They are the difference between movement and isolation when weather turns or a corridor closes.

Governor Tina Kotek said Warner was coming into the job with years of experience directing the Portland Bureau of Transportation. Her office also named Emerald Bogue as chief of staff. Warner steps into the interim role while the agency moves toward a permanent director, a transition that carries real operational weight because the director helps guide ODOT through maintenance priorities, project delivery and the daily pressure of keeping the system moving.

ODOT’s own structure shows why the post matters. The Oregon Transportation Commission, a governor-appointed five-member board, oversees the department, while administrators manage day-to-day operations. That means Warner’s role sits inside a wider chain of accountability, but the director still has significant influence over how limited transportation dollars are spent across a state with vastly different needs in Portland, the Willamette Valley and eastern Oregon.

The timing is important, too. In August 2025, Kotek called a special legislative session to address what she described as a transportation system emergency, with money needed for basic road maintenance and operations at ODOT as well as funding gaps for local governments and transit. By January 2026, NEACT meeting minutes were already referring to an open ODOT director position and the need to work with an interim director, underscoring that the agency had been in transition while funding concerns continued.

For Baker County, Warner’s rise is more than a hometown note. It puts someone who grew up here and knows the realities of eastern Oregon travel inside the state agency that decides how reliably those roads stay open. In a region where storms, distance and freight traffic test the transportation system every season, that local background may shape how ODOT weighs the needs of rural communities now facing another round of hard choices.