Alice Garland: Executive Director, North Carolina Education Lottery

Alice Garland helped start the N.C Education Lottery with its first Executive Director, Tom Shaheen, and served as Deputy Executive Director for legislative and corporate communications since the lottery began operations in March 2006. For more than 25 years, she served in executive posts handling governmental affairs with N.C Department of Commerce; State Director of the U.S. Senate office of former U.S. Senator John Edwards; and Director of public affairs for ElectriCities of North Carolina. She served previously in similar posts in the former N.C. Department Of Natural Resources and Community Development, the N.C. Department of Transportation, and the State Employees Association of North Carolina.

Garland, a native of Greenville, Tennessee; has lived in Raleigh for over 40 years. She received a bachelor’s degree from the college of William and Mary with a major in urban studies and a minor in economics and received a masters degree in city and regional planning from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She has been a member of the Raleigh Kiwanis Club for 20 years and served six years on the board of directors of the Public School Forum. She is married and has three children.   

In August 2005, Gov. Mike Easley signed into law the North Carolina State Lottery Act (H. 1023) and the 2005 Appropriations Act (S. 622) which enacted the North Carolina Education Lottery.

The act created the 9-member North Carolina Education Lottery (NCEL) Commission to initiate, supervise, and administer the education lottery. The Commission was appointed in September 2005, with Dr. Charles Sanders of Durham as its first chair and its initial meeting was held on October 6, 2005. On November 17, 2005, the Commission appointed Thomas N. Shaheen as Executive Director. Shaheen started work on December 5, 2005. Shaheen hired other staff and was responsible for the administrative management and daily operations of the Commission.

On March 30, 2006, the NCEL sold its first instant scratch-off tickets.  On May 30, 2006, the NCEL began selling Powerball tickets and in October, 2006 the NCEL added its in-state online games introducing Carolina Pick 3 and Carolina Cash 5.

100 percent of the net proceeds of the NCEL goes to education expenses, including reduced class size, reduction in early grades, academic pre-kindergarten programs, school construction and college scholarships.


Games Offered: Instant, 3-Digit, 4 Digit, 5-Digit, Powerball, Mega Millions

Year Established: 2006

Beneficiaries: Education

Key Personnel:

Deb Doty, Deputy Executive Director MIS & Gaming

Sam Hammett, Deputy Executive Director Sales

Bill Jourdain, Deputy Executive Director Finance & Administration & Security

Lou Ann Russell, Deputy Executive Director Marketing & Advertising & Communications

Margaret Bode, Senior Director Human Resources

Quan Kirk, Senior Director Legal

Van Denton, Director Communications

Nikki Howard, Director Internal Audit