Terrell Halaska Dunn

Terrell Halaska is one of the founding partners of HCM Strategies, a mission-driven public policy firm that works hand in hand with clients to improve people’s lives through good policy. An expert at strategy development and relationship building, Terrell serves as the managing partner for the firm, leads the firm’s support of several education clients and provides strategic guidance to HCM’s health team.

Leading up to her work with HCM, Terrell was confirmed by the United States Senate in 2005 as assistant secretary of education for legislation and Congressional affairs, serving as a member of Margaret Spellings’s executive team and as the department’s top negotiator with Congress. This position built on her work at the White House, where she advised the president, domestic policy advisor, and other senior staff as special assistant to the president for domestic policy. In that role, she developed and advanced administration policies on family and children’s issues — including early childhood education, welfare reform, housing, and homelessness.

Prior to the White House, Terrell joined Tommy Thompson, then-Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), on his senior management team as deputy chief of staff. She oversaw policy development on a number of issues within the department — including stem cell research and international and domestic HIV/AIDS initiatives — and built a reputation as a consensus builder willing to consider fresh ideas to address vexing bioethical and health policy problems.

A graduate of the University of California, San Diego, with a bachelor’s degree in political science, Terrell began to focus on policy during her master’s studies at the Monterey Institution of International Studies. She put her education to work on Capitol Hill as a press secretary to Rep. Scott Klug and on the state level as the media manager for the National Governor’s Association and director of the state of Wisconsin’s Washington, D.C. office. Married to David Dunn, Terrell lives in Austin, Texas, where David is also an education policy consultant.