Mary Peters

Peters was born in Peoria, Arizona. She received her bachelor's degree in business administration and management from the University of Phoenix and subsequently attended a three week seminar at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. When Peters was six, her parents divorced. Her father raised Mary and her three siblings in Phoenix, Arizona.

Peters joined the Arizona Department of Transportation in 1985, and was appointed by Gov. Jane Dee Hull to serve as its director in 1998.

After George W. Bush took office as president in 2001, Peters left for Washington to work as the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. She worked in that capacity until 2005.

In 2005, there was speculation that Peters would run for governor of Arizona in 2006. At the time, however, she said, while she believed she would have been a strong candidate, and was eligible to run despite having lived and registered to vote in Virginia, that questions about her eligibility would have been a distraction from the race. She was also a speculated candidate for governor in 2010, but instead served as co-chair of incumbent governor Jan Brewer's election campaign (along with former state Attorney General Grant Woods). Peters is a transportation consultant for national engineering and planning organizations.

Mary married Terry Peters, a marine, at age 17. She and Terry have three children together. In 2013, Terry was convicted of sexually abusing a seven-year-old girl, and he was sentenced to fourteen years in prison.