Secretary of Transportation Christy Hall is responsible for leading the Department of Transportation for the state of South Carolina. In her capacity as the head of the agency, she is responsible for directing and guiding all of the agency’s planning, maintenance, construction and operational efforts for the nation’s fourth largest state-owned highway system. Secretary Hall rose through the ranks of the agency and has used that unique experience along with her keen desire for continuous improvement to establish SCDOT as one of the best in the business. Whether it is disaster response and recovery operations, accelerating critical interstate widening projects, or more than quadrupling the amount of road and bridge work across the state, SCDOT is leading the way and working with industry partners to deliver results for the people of South Carolina. Secretary Hall is a South Carolina native, a graduate of Clemson University, and a registered Professional Engineer. She has been blessed with several awards and recognitions, including an Emmy nomination for her work with SCETV and the state’s highest civilian honor, The Order of the Palmetto, which Governor Nikki Haley conferred upon the Secretary.

Teresa Powers is deputy director of Global Business Development for the South Carolina Department of Commerce. She joined the agency in 2015 as a senior project manager, working directly with domestic and foreign-based companies considering locating or expanding in the state. In this role she assisted more than 300 projects, resulting in the announcement of $2.8 billion of new capital investment and 21,000 jobs throughout South Carolina.

Prior to Commerce, Teresa served 11 years as the economic development director for Newberry County, South Carolina. During that time, she served on the Upper Savannah Workforce Investment Board and the South Carolina Economic Developers’ Association board of directors. Teresa is a South Carolina Certified Economic Developer and a graduate of the nationally recognized Economic Development Institute. Ms. Powers earned both a bachelor’s and master ’s degree in economics from UNC-Greensboro and an MBA from Clemson Universi