ITD Executive Team Biographies

Idaho Transportation Department
Executive Director – Pamela Lowe

Pamela K. Lowe became Director of the Idaho Transportation Department on January 16, 2007, a month after being named to the position by the Idaho Transportation Board. The preceding four months she served as deputy director and was Administrator of ITD’s Division of Motor Vehicles for nearly 18 months.

Lowe has more than 25 years of engineering experience, including positions in the private sector and with the Federal Highway Administration and the Arizona Department of Transportation. She began her career with the FHWA working on construction and design projects throughout the country. She was the first female to oversee a construction project in that organization’s history.

During her tenure at ADOT, she co-located her staff with the personnel from a worldwide consulting firm and developed Arizona’s Project Management model for design development and construction coordination that is in use at ADOT today.

She began her career at ITD in 1993 as a construction associate. Two years later (April 1995), she advanced to planning services manager and then to regional engineer in 1997. Lowe became the first female district engineer in Idaho when she was chosen to lead District 3 in December 2000.

Lowe was promoted to DMV administrator in 2004. Under her leadership, the division initiated a process to evaluate current computing deficiencies and identify options for securing a new statewide system for issuing licenses, titles and vehicle registrations.

She is a registered professional engineer in Oregon, Idaho, and Arizona.

Scott Stokes

Deputy Director
Scott Stokes

L. Scott Stokes, a second-generation Idaho Transportation Department employee and a 15-year veteran of the department, became deputy director Feb. 26, 2007. He joined the department as a staff engineer in the bridge section at Headquarters in 1992. A year later he was promoted to project development engineer for District 1 in Coeur d’Alene, working primarily on U.S. 95 widening projects south of Worley.

He returned to Boise in 1995 to become the state bridge engineer, a position he held for about a year when he was named District 1 Engineer and moved back to Coeur d’Alene. He graduated from Brigham Young University with a degree in civil engineering in 1983 and earned a master’s, also in civil engineering, from BYU the following year. He worked in the private sector for about eight years before joining ITD.

A native of Salmon, Idaho, Stokes has lived in four of the state’s six transportation districts (1, 3, 5, 6). His father Elden Sr. retired as a maintenance foreman in 1984 after a 40-year career.

Dave Tolman became ITD's Administrator of the Division of Administration in August of 2007. He had worked as ITD's Controller for six years.

Tolman began his public career in 1990 at the State Controller's Office. Five years later he transferred to the state's Division of Financial Management, where he remained for six years.

Earning a bachelor's degree in finance from Brigham Young University in 1988, Tolman followed with a master's degree in Business Administration from Boise State University in 1996.

John DeThomas, a native of Idaho whose aviation experience includes flight training and education, military service and administrative work in the private sector, joined the Idaho Transportation Department as administrator of the Division of Aeronautics in April, 2007. Immediately preceding his return to Idaho in 2002, DeThomas served as director of flight training for Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s western campus in Prescott, Ariz.

He also served as director of flight operations for Raytheon Aircraft Company in Wichita, Kan., from 1995 to 1998, and was a defense system manager for Lockheed Aeronautical Systems Co. in Burbank, Calif. In six years at Lockheed, he also was director of flight operations and was a test pilot.

DeThomas concluded a 24-year Naval career in 1985, retiring as a captain. He provided combat support during the Vietnam War (1967 to 1970) and received a number of commendations and medals for his military service.

The new Aeronautics administrator earned a bachelor’s of science degree from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1965 and a master’s in aeronautical engineering from the Naval Postgraduate School.

Tom Cole

Tom Cole was appointed Chief Engineer of the Idaho Transportation Department in August of 2008. Cole’s ITD career began in 1982 in Boise. Five years later he transferred to Materials in District 6 where he began ascending the ranks to district engineer. He was promoted to Region 1 engineer in 1996, assistant district engineer in 1998 and became district engineer in October 2000.

Under his leadership, the district delivered projects on time and within established budgets and improved opportunities for constituents to be involved by helping to establish county transportation committees. Cole made consistent improvements to district planning and operations.

Cole will be responsible for highways in all six of ITD’s geographic regions as well as Highway programming, the Office of Highway Operations and Safety, Highway Development, and Operations.

Alan Frew

Alan Frew was named administrator of ITD’s Division of Motor Vehicles in 2006.

A native of Pocatello, he began as a Port of Entry inspector at the Sage Junction POE north of Idaho Falls in 1985. Since then he has served as a senior inspector, POE operations officer, program manager for a de-centralized POE under the Division of Highways, and beginning in 1997, as manager of a centralized POE when it was reorganized and moved to the Division of Motor Vehicles.

Randy Kyrias earned a bachelor´s degree in management from Pepperdine University (Malibu, Calif.) in 1992 and followed with a master´s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California four years later.

He moved to Idaho in 1999 where he spent the first few years in the Treasure Valley as a consultant before joining Valley Regional Transit (which operates Valley Ride) in 2003.

As deputy director at VRT, Kyrias became familiar with the role Public Transportation plays in administering grants and shaping the development of Idaho´s rapidly developing rural transportation providers.

Kyrias was named Public Transportation Division Administrator in 2007.

Transportation Planning and Programming Division
Administrator - Matthew E. Moore

Matthew E. Moore was named administrator of the Idaho Transportation Department’s Division of Planning and Programming in 2006. He had previously served for nearly two years as the transportation department’s research manager and the State of Idaho’s representative to the Transportation Research Board. Moore also provided financial oversight for Idaho’s technology transfer program, and participated on regional and national committees through the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO) Research Advisory Committee.

He joined ITD’s planning division in 1998 and re-engineered the department’s Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality Improvement program. He also co-managed a nationally award-winning four-year project to identify and articulate a 30-year transportation vision for Idaho. Moore provided support and guidance to all of ITD’s divisions for coordination of strategic and action plans under the auspices of the long-range vision.

Before coming to ITD, Moore worked on air quality issues for the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality from 1994-98, on water quality issues for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality in 1994 and two private environmental consulting firms in California.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in resource management and public administration from Northern Arizona University (1987) and a master’s degree in public policy from Claremont Graduate University.