Rick C. Wade has worked where business decisions and public policy meet. A Black executive from Lancaster, South Carolina, he has held responsibilities in state government, the federal Commerce Department and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in electoral politics as well as the quieter work of organizing partnerships between institutions.
Wade earned a bachelor's degree in biology at the University of South Carolina and a master's degree in public administration at Harvard, later adding honorary doctorates from Benedict College and South Carolina State University. His business experience includes Hoffmann-La Roche and Blue Cross Blue Shield of South Carolina, alongside advisory and investment work.
He served as a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to Commerce Secretary Gary Locke. The Chamber's biography describes responsibilities involving local officials, business organizations and initiatives supporting minority enterprises, along with work encouraging private-sector assistance after Haiti's 2010 earthquake.
At the Chamber, Wade became senior vice president for strategic alliances and outreach. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the country's largest business federation, and his work there connected corporate members with outside communities and institutions. In an August 2018 account, he described a partnership with Howard University that placed eight students in summer internships, seven from Howard and one from Harvard, with assignments including research, special projects and attending congressional hearings.
In February 2022, Wade appeared before a House committee as a Chamber witness. Recalling his upbringing in a segregated textile town, he connected infrastructure to ordinary experiences such as reaching school and having indoor plumbing, and argued that transit, broadband and procurement opportunities mattered to communities and minority-owned businesses.
