Meet the NCDOT secretary: Daniel Johnson is a Navy veteran who grew up in Hickory
Daniel Johnson lost both legs and a pinky finger while serving in the U.S. Navy in 1999.
Today, Johnson is the secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation.
N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson stands in front of the Hickory Metro Convention Center.
Johnson grew up in Hickory after his family moved to the area when he was in middle school. Johnson credits the Hickory community in part for his successes and injury recovery.
“I think I had a great experience at Hickory High. I still have some friends I talk to probably daily from my time in Hickory,” Johnson said. “Learned a lot from the people here. Had great mentors and leaders kind of guiding me along the way. It (Hickory) was just a very formative place for me to grow up, and I think it's a great place to live.”
Johnson, 50, who lives in Raleigh, was excited when he got the chance to visit Hickory in early October in his role as secretary of the N.C. Department of Transportation, he said. Johnson, along with other N.C. Department of Transportation officials, toured sites in N.C. DOT Division 12, which includes Catawba County.
Johnson discussed his time in the military and his legal career with the N.C. Department of Transportation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson, left, and Hickory Mayor Hank Guess converse at the Hickory Aviation Museum during Johnson's recent visit to the city.
Serving in the Navy
I did ROTC when I was an undergrad. I graduated from UNC Chapel Hill in 1998 and went into the Navy that same day. I medically retired from the Navy in January of 2000. I was involved in a pretty very serious accident in August of 1999. After the accident, that’s where Hickory showed what a great place it is. Hickory formed a lot of who I am and how I approach things, but it also picked me up. The community really came together after I went through a really traumatic accident and picked me up and got me moving to the next chapter of my life.
Service accident
I was a division officer on the USS Blue Ridge. We were stationed in Yokosuka, Japan. We were getting underway from port in Busan, South Korea, when a line from a tugboat surged. One of the sailors in my division got caught in that line, so I was trying to get to the line and see if we could free him from that. He ended up losing one of his legs, and then I got caught in that line. It ended up amputating both of my legs and pinky finger on my left hand. It was a traumatic, very rapid accident that came out of nowhere.
From left, N.C. Board of Transportation Member Brad Lail, Addison Fox, N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson and Hickory Metro Convention Center CEO Mandy Pitts Hildebrand at the Hickory Aviation Museum. Fox is a longtime friend of Johnson.
It was a tough recovery. I was 23 years old. You are going back to square one, not really knowing what your future would hold. There were definitely days where I thought I'd probably spend the rest of my days at my parents' house in Hickory or something. I wasn't sure what the possibilities were.
I was in a hospital in Korea for a week or two and then flew to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. I received a tremendous amount of support from the people in Hickory and I did rehab. The biggest challenges I had was just trying to envision what my future was going to be and learning how to walk again. I got great support from the military hospital and from other veterans who had been through something similar. They got me staying active and learning that there's plenty of life left even after you've been through such a traumatic accident.
Military influence
The Navy was hugely influential in my life even though I was only in for a couple of years. It really shapes your worldview. You get to this very intense environment where you're working with people from all over the country, and you're having to set your interests aside for the needs of what the Navy is and what the mission may be. That really shaped my leadership skills. It shaped how I relate to people.
N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson
When the accident happened, obviously it reshaped my life altogether. In some ways, obviously, it was a tough thing to go through, but I don't really have any regrets that I went through that. I think coming through that gave me some additional strength to open new opportunities. I don't regret that the accident happened, but it still presents its challenges on some days, but for the most part, through the support I've gotten, the rehab I've been through, I'm able to live life without any limitations.
Becoming a lawyer
I didn't really have a plan. Part of transitioning from the Navy was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Here I was a young officer in the Navy and thought I had at least a few more years in the Navy, maybe stay longer than that. I really didn't have a plan for what I would do after that. I moved back to Chapel Hill. Started thinking about going to med school, but I took chemistry again and realized I was just as bad as I was the first time.
N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson, in the orange vest, gets briefed on a railroad project in Raleigh.
There was a great counselor at the VA (Veterans Affairs) who worked with me trying to figure out what I should do next. He identified practicing law and that appealed to me. I ended up applying to and enrolling in law school at UNC Chapel Hill.
I’m still a licensed attorney. I've been a lawyer since 2004, so 22 years. My current role as N.C. Department of Transportation secretary is not really a strictly legal job. My law experience certainly informs a lot of decisions and how I make those decisions. I served in various roles, starting as a prosecutor in Wake County, then was in private practice for a while. The way I ended up in this job, I started out in the counsel's office at the N.C. Department of Transportation. I worked my way up to a role as deputy secretary and general counsel and was appointed secretary in October of 2025.
Secretary position
I've been in private practice for a while, and I was just looking for a way to get back into public service. I had this opportunity pop up. I met with the secretary at the time, interviewed with him, as he was trying to build out his staff. I was fortunate that he offered me a position, and frankly I came into the department not knowing a lot about transportation. I used it a lot, just getting around, but I was not an expert in transportation. I jumped in and thought it would be a short-term job, you know, do it for a couple of years, get a view of state government from the inside. But then I found this agency, and I really love the agency. I love the mission of the agency, the people of the agency. It's a hardworking group of people, very dedicated, and so I stuck with it, and then when this opportunity came up to become the secretary, I took it.
We run the second-biggest state road system in the United States. The one thing I've learned the most, and I continue to learn frankly daily, is how complex the road system is, and how complex the programs that we have are, and how challenging they can be to deliver to meet the needs of the people of the state of North Carolina.
Accomplishments in office
In the past year, our biggest priority overall continues to be Helene recovery. We just passed the two-year mark of the Helene anniversary in September. We have made tremendous progress in restoring the roads in western North Carolina. There's a lot of work left to go on some of the biggest, most challenging projects. When you see the progress, like in Division 11, which starts in Caldwell County going up, Wilkes County, they had over $300 million in damage alone. If you took that by itself, it would have been the biggest disaster we've ever had. Except for a couple of bridges, they're pretty much done with their recovery work in Division 11. You see that across all western North Carolina, apart from some of the major projects and some of the more complicated bridge projects. We've come so far with that recovery in the past couple of years, but particularly in the past year, we were able to finish a lot of things.
N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson discusses veterans in the N.C. Department of Transportation.
N.C. Department of Transportation goals
We're in the process of rolling out a new strategic plan for the department, which identifies six priorities. Number one, the biggest priority, is trying to improve safety on the roadways. Second is improving safety and building our workforce. The third one's working on project delivery, which means trying to get these projects from concept to delivery as quickly as possible. Working on keeping the roadways flowing, keeping everything moving, keeping it well maintained, and then digital modernization. For the next year, I'm in the process of traveling around and visiting all the 14 different divisions to talk about this strategic plan and to roll this out and get the agency pointed in a unified direction. We can take what I think is a really great agency and make it even better.
Sarah Johnson is the courts and breaking news reporter for the Hickory Daily Record.
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N.C. Department of Transportation Secretary Daniel Johnson, previously of Hickory, talks about how his service in the U.S. Navy shaped his career.
