Catherine Hayes has over 20 years of international industrial experience, leveraging her engineering education to lead successful teams in Manufacturing Engineering and Operations, Quality Engineering, and Industrial Engineering at Square D, NCR, and Bosch.  

Previously as Executive Director of the South Carolina Automotive Council, Catherine championed Industry 4.0 technologies, convened manufacturers to share best practices, and collaborated throughout the Southeast with automotive manufacturers to support the automotive industry and expand foreign direct investment.

Currently as Industry Manager with SCRA, Catherine partners with industry, academic institutions, and technology companies to facilitate technology transfer to industry. She collaborates with state agencies, economic development alliances, and regional partners to support industry growth and to recruit new technology companies to the state.

Recently, Catherine transitioned from the Board to the Executive Director of the Center of Resilience Excellence SC, where CORE SC partners with NASA, federal and state government, industry, academic institutions, and public and private organizations to research, develop, and implement scalable and replicable solutions to resilience challenges. 

Catherine serves on the SC Manufacturing Extension Partnership (SCMEP) Board of Directors, the Clemson University Industry Advisory Board for the Center for Connected Multi-modal Mobility, the Clemson University Industry Advisory Board for Research Experience for Teachers, and she co-leads the state in the NSF Innovation Engine Type 1 planning grant for clean energy, CLEANcarolinas, a collaboration with NC and SC. 

As President & CEO of SCRA, Bob leads an organization that fuels South Carolina’s innovation economy by accelerating technology-enabled growth of academia, entrepreneurship, and industry. The organization’s impact on the state’s economy equaled $1.19 billion in FY23. 

Prior to joining SCRA, he worked in various executive roles with Battelle Memorial Institute and affiliated companies. Bob most recently was the Managing Director of Battelle’s subsidiary, 360ip, an international investment, fund management, and commercialization company. Previous assignments included Vice President of Technology Commercialization and Vice President of Environmental Science and Technology at Battelle as well as Director of Technology Commercialization at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. He began his career with the federal government, holding management positions at the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

His current Board participation includes Central SC Alliance, Charleston Regional Development Alliance, SCbio, SC EPSCoR, SC Council on Economic Education, and South Carolina Research Foundation.    

Bob holds a bachelor’s degree (Phi Beta Kappa) from Rutgers University and a master’s degree (Exxon Graduate Fellow) from George Washington University. He also completed the Executive Management Program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. His honors include membership in the Charleston Business Hall of Fame and being named as one of the inaugural recipients of the SC Biz News Icon Honors.