Neal McCaleb

Neal McCaleb, a proud member of the Chickasaw Nation, had a decades-long career as a civil engineer and made significant contributions to Oklahoma's infrastructure and Native American affairs. McCaleb graduated with a bachelor's degree with honors in civil engineering at Oklahoma A&M University (now Oklahoma State University) in 1957.

He served on the Oklahoma Indian Affairs Commission before, in 1974, being elected to the Oklahoma House of Representatives and served a term as Minority House leader. He served on President Richard Nixon's National Council on Indian Opportunities from 1972 to 1974, where he helped restore sovereignty to tribes across America, the most exciting public policy reversal in favor of Native Americans in history. In 1983, he was appointed to the President's Commission on Reservation Economics by President Ronald Reagan as a representative of the Chickasaw Nation.

McCaleb was appointed as Oklahoma's first Secretary of Transportation by Governor Henry Bellmon in 1987. During that term, he also served as the Director of the Oklahoma Department of Transportation overseeing the construction of four new turnpikes and the new PikePass system. In 2001 he was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Interior by President George W. Bush. Returning home, McCaleb worked as an economic development consultant for the Chickasaw Nation and was inducted into the Chickasaw Hall of Fame in 1999.