Gary Sharpe earned his Bachelors (1976) and Masters (1978) Degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Kentucky. Gary began his engineering career in 1976 with the Division of Research at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.  In 1980, the Division of Research was transferred to the University of Kentucky – Transportation Research Program, which is known today as the Kentucky Transportation Center.  In 1989, Gary returned to the Transportation Cabinet to lead the pavement design function in the Division of Highway Design.  In 2000, Gary was named Director for the Division of Highway Design, a position held until his retirement in December 2004.  Gary joined Palmer Engineering in 2005 as a Senior Project Manager.

During Gary’s career, he has been involved in many facets of pavement engineering including research and development, structural design of new and rehabilitated pavements, pavement management and condition assessment, and development of pavement design methodologies. With his retirement from the Transportation Cabinet in 2004, Gary was asked by the National Cooperative Highway Research Program to chair the Panel responsible for implementing AASHTO’s new Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide that ultimately evolved to the AASHTO Pavement ME design method in use today.