Greg Canfield Secretary of Commerce

Greg Canfield has served as Secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce since July 2011. In this role, he has provided consistent leadership for a statewide team of economic development professionals while helping to shape a strategic vision for sustainable economic growth and meaningful job creation across Alabama.

Canfield has broad responsibility for ensuring the five chief priorities of the department are advanced. These are increasing business recruitment and expansion activity, expanding export opportunities for Alabama companies, improving workforce development initiatives, enhancing small business growth, and providing avenues for job creation in the film and entertainment industry. During Canfield’s tenure, industry publications have repeatedly honored Alabama for economic development success. Since 2011, Alabama has attracted projects involving over $70 billion in new private sector capital investment and over 180,000 jobs. Economic development efforts in 2022 attracted more than $10 billion in capital investment, setting a new annual record for the state.

Canfield reports directly to Governor Kay Ivey and frequently plays a leading role in negotiations with companies considering Alabama in their growth plans. In this capacity, he has worked with high-performing companies such as Mercedes-Benz, Mazda Toyota Manufacturing, Google, Amazon, Boeing, Airbus, Blue Origin, GE Aviation, Polaris, and many others. Canfield also spearheaded a successful effort to overhaul the state’s outdated incentives platform to make it more fiscally responsible, effective and sustainable over time.

Because of extensive international travel, Canfield has developed a diverse range of high-level business contacts around the globe. As Commerce Secretary, he has led Alabama delegations to high-profile European air shows and on numerous trade missions to locations around the world, helping to drive export growth. During his time at Commerce, Alabama has attracted robust inflows of foreign direct investment each year. Since 2013, FDI projects in Alabama have involved nearly $25 billion in new capital investment, generating more than 35,000 new jobs in the state. FDI projects in 2022 involved $5.5 billion in capital investment and 4,500 job commitments.

Canfield modernized the Alabama Development Office as the Alabama Department of Commerce. He launched the “Made in Alabama” brand in early 2013 to share and magnify positive content about the state’s noteworthy economic development endeavors and its business advantages. He has also overseen a significant expansion of the department’s responsibilities to encompass most of the state’s non-educational workforce development activities, which consistently rank among the nation’s best. Canfield has also worked to enhance the competitiveness of Alabama’s rural areas for economic development projects and in 2020 launched the “RurAL” campaign as an extension of the “Made in Alabama” brand to showcase the advantages of doing business in those areas.

Canfield graduated from Huffman High School in Birmingham and attended the University of Alabama and UAB, where he earned a finance degree in 1983. He began a career in sales with Purolator Corp., a Fortune 500 company. At Purolator, he served as Southeastern Regional Sales Manager before becoming Regional Administration Manager with responsibility for the region’s budgetary process.

Canfield later served as a National Account Manager for Transus Freight Systems, overseeing the company’s markets along the U.S. Eastern seaboard from Alabama to New Jersey.

Canfield entered the insurance and financial services field in 1990. Three years later, he opened his own business, marketing insurance services to businesses and individuals. He sold Canfield Insurance & Financial Services Inc. in 2008 and joined J.H. Berry Insurance in Birmingham.

As president of the Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce, Canfield launched the organization’s Business Development Committee, which promoted the community for commercial investment. In 2000, while serving as President of the Vestavia Hills City Council, he was instrumental in the development of Vestavia’s first long-range economic development and land use plan.

Canfield was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 2006, serving for nearly five years. He is the author of the Rolling Reserve Budget Act, which improved the education budget process in an effort to establish reserves and prevent education proration. Canfield also served as chairman of the House’s Commerce & Small Business Committee.

He has been married to his wife Denise since April 1983, and they are the parents of Rachel Canfield Young and John Canfield and grandparents to James and Abby Young.

Angela Till Deputy Secretary, Business Development Division

As deputy secretary of the Alabama Department of Commerce, Angela Till serves as the second-ranking leader at the state’s lead economic development agency. Till joined Commerce in July 2014 after a lengthy tenure at the Alabama Department of Revenue, where she specialized in economic development issues.

Till is active in many economic development and industry organizations. She serves as board secretary for the Alabama Communities of Excellence program and as a board member of the Automotive Manufacturers Association of Alabama. She is a member of the Southern Economic Development Council and the Economic Development Association of Alabama.

While at the Revenue Department, Till developed considerable expertise in the financial and tax-related aspects of incentives packages and gained valuable experience working with economic developers from across Alabama.

Before joining Commerce, Till served as the abatement program administrator for the Office of Economic Development in the Revenue Department, helping to craft the tax-related elements of incentive packages for various projects. She administered Alabama’s tax incentive programs for the Revenue Department for 14 years.

In total, Till worked at the Alabama Department of Revenue for 24 years, serving in various positions including senior tax analyst and sales and use tax auditor.

Till holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Auburn University at Montgomery.

Ed Castile Deputy Secretary, Workforce Development Division, Director of AIDT

Ed Castile was appointed Director of Alabama Industrial Development Training on August 16, 1993. He is a former director of the State of Tennessee Industrial Training Service.

He currently serves on the Governor’s College and Career Ready Task Force, the State Workforce Investment Act Board, the Board of Directors for the Economic Development Partnership of Alabama Foundation, the Economic Development Association of Alabama Board of Directors, the Alabama Career/Technical Education Advisory Council, the Commission on Manufacturing, the UAB Biotechnology Advisory Board, and the Governor’s Economic Alliance. He is the in-coming president of the National Association of Industry Specific Training Directors.

Mr. Castile earned a Masters of Vocational Technical Education degree and a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Studies Education degree from the Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Ted Clem Director

Ted Clem, an experienced economic developer who has worked in three Southeastern states, became Director of the Alabama Department of Commerce’s Business Development division in March 2015.

The Business Division markets Alabama to the world, pinpointing companies that may have expansion projects in the region over the next three to five years, and supports the expansion and retention of existing businesses. The division works closely with economic development allies throughout the state as part of a team-based recruitment effort.

Clem joined Commerce in February 2014 as a senior project manager and played a key role in two projects in Opelika that involved $340 million in capital investment and nearly 400 new jobs.

Clem began his career in Evergreen, Alabama, as the first Executive Director of the Conecuh County Economic Development Authority. He later served with the Covington County Economic Development Commission before moving on to a business development post at the Pensacola Chamber of Commerce in 1995, followed by a stint the Bay County Economic Development Alliance in Panama City.

Before joining Commerce, Clem served as President of the Albany-Dougherty Economic Development Commission in Georgia, where he helped lead community strategic planning efforts and was instrumental in the creation of a $30 million deal-closing fund for projects.

Clem holds the Certified Economic Developer certification and earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Troy University, where he played on national championship football teams in 1984 and 1987. He also received a master’s degree in economic development from the University of Southern Mississippi.

He and his wife, Stacey, reside in Prattville with their three children.

Eddie Postell Manager

Eddie Postell and the Small Business Office of Advocacy foster the growth of Alabama’s small operations by giving them a variety of assistance. The office provides information to businesses, and the needs and concerns of small-business owners are regularly addressed. Working closely with the Small Business Development Consortium, the agency’s Small Business Office is working in coordination with the consortium’s 11 Small Business Development Centers at universities throughout the state and jointly publishes Alabamas Answers, a guide to doing business in Alabama.

The department also participates in joint efforts with ADECA’s Office of Minority Business Enterprise, as well as other groups around the state involved in the development of small business.

Kathy Faulk Manager

Ms. Faulk and her staff in the Alabama Film Office are tasked with recruiting film, television and entertainment production to the State of Alabama. This office has seen tremendous growth since the passage of the “Entertainment Incentives Act” by the legislature in 2009.

Ms. Faulk was instrumental in passage of this legislation and was appointed to lead the Film Office. She spent over twenty years working in the Governor’s Office under four Governors. Ms. Faulk said that working for the Film Office has been the biggest and most rewarding challenge of her 38 years of state service.

Since joining the staff, the Alabama Film Office has implemented a successful incentives program that is gathering national attention. In April 2013, two feature films were released in the same month; a first for the Film Office. Numerous feature films such as “October Baby”, “42”, “Space Warriors” have filmed in Alabama, along with countless commercials, reality shows, documentaries and music videos.

Prior to working in the Film Office and the Governor’s Office, Ms. Faulk also worked in the state departments of Finance and Human Resources.