During the post war occupation, he was stationed in Heidelberg and Straubing, Germany as First Lieutenant, and finally in El Paso, Texas.
Turner joined the University of Texas at Austin as Instructor 1953, becoming full professor in 1961.
Late in his life, the herbarium was renamed the Billie L. Turner Plant Resources Center.
[2] In 1993, he arranged an endowment named after Dr. George M. Hocking to support the collection of floristic texts at the University of Texas at Austin Libraries.
Obituaries report his behavior occasionally led him into difficulty at the University of Texas, and several efforts were made to have him fired.