Beverly Cover Norris, Pioneering Transportation Engineer

Beverly Cover Norris, Pioneering Transportation Engineer

Beverly Ann Cover (1940-1991) was a native of Cumberland and a 1958 graduate of Allegany High School. According to an article appearing in the April 1962 edition of The News in Public Roads, she was the first woman highway engineer in the history of the Federal Highway Administration.*

The article, depicted here, noted that she had graduated in March 1962 with a degree in Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and was only the second woman in the history of the school to receive that degree. The article also states that she is the Bureau’s “prettiest engineer.” At the time of her hiring she was twenty-two years of age.

“Beverly Way” is located in the LaVale residential development known as Coverwood. Coverwood was constructed in the mid-1950’s by the local developer, Ralph Cover. He named each of the streets in the development after his children, of which Beverly was one. Mr. Cover later developed the Cover Valley Golf Course which was located on a site now occupied by the Country Club Mall.

* The News in Public Roads was a publication of the United States Department of Commerce, Bureau of Public Roads. It was the Bureau of Public Roads which hired Beverly Cover in 1962. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) was created in 1966 and in 1967 the Bureau of Public Roads was transferred into the FHWA.

Source: “Female Innovators in Transportation: Yesterday and Today” by Doug Hecox, Public Roads - Spring 2020, U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration

“Beverly Way” street sign photograph by Albert L. Feldstein, March 20, 2022