[3][4] Turner's career began in earnest with an assignment to oversee Federal-aid road projects in Arkansas.

Afterwards, he was asked to work on the Alaska Highway, where he is credited with implementing the milepost system.

[3] He then worked as the deputy commissioner, chief engineer, and Federal Highway Administrator.

As the British newspaper The Independent noted in Turner's 1999 obituary, Turner's resume can be read in the landscape: When the young area engineer began his career in Arkansas, "most American roads were dirt and gravel."

[4] In 1983, the Fairbank Highway Research Station in McLean, Virginia, named for Herbert S. Fairbank, an official at FHWA's predecessor Bureau of Public Roads, was renamed the Turner-Fairbank Highway Research Center in honor of Turner.