Teresa Lasseter grew up on a farm in Tifton, Georgia. She graduated from Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College with a degree in business administration. Lasseter worked for the Georgia Department of transportation directly after graduating college and before taking a part-time summer job in the FSA county office in 1977. She held a variety of positions while traveling the state and familiarizing herself with farm programs on the local level and entered the agency's management training program before stepping back in 1993 due to family concerns. A political appointment from then-Gov. Zell Miller kept her closer to home. She was executive director of the Georgia Agrirama Development Authority in Tifton, remaining there until 1999. During this time back at home she also chaired the Chamber of Commerce in Tifton. U.S. Rep. Saxby Chambliss led the effort to secure Lasseter's nomination by the Bush Administration to the position of FSA executive director for Georgia. One year later she was appointed the Associate Administrator for Programs (in the FSA) and asked to move to Washington, DC, where she worked from 2003 to 2004. Most recently, Lasseter served six years as the Executive Director of Tifton, Georgia's Agrirama Development Authority. The 30-year old Agrirama is an educational living history center dedicated to bringing rural life of turn-of-the-century Georgia to life.   She was appointed chief of the FSA by agriculture secretary Mike Johanns in October 2005. She is the first administrator to have worked her way up through the organization's ranks. She is also the first female administrator. Lasseter also serves as the executive vice president of the Commodity Credit Corporation, a wholly-owned government corporation with a $30 billion line of credit with the United States Department of Treasury.