A native of Camden, Alabama, Governor Ivey received her bachelor’s degree from Auburn University. Her early career included service as a schoolteacher, as a bank officer, and as the reading clerk for the Alabama House of Representatives. She then served as assistant director of the Alabama Development Office (now the Alabama Department of Commerce), working to spur job creation and economic development across the state. In 1985 she was appointed to the Alabama Commission on Higher Education and was its director of government affairs and communications until 1998. Ivey was elected state treasurer in 2002 and served for two terms, focusing on making that office’s work more transparent and efficient. In 2010 she was elected to the first of her two terms as Alabama’s lieutenant governor. Her priorities in that role included making state government more efficient and reducing spending, creating jobs, addressing child hunger, and increasing STEM education. She took office as Alabama’s governor in April 2017.