DuPont government affairs veteran Billi Hunt has been named executive director of the Cultivation Corridor, the organization looking to make Central Iowa and other parts of the state a higher-profile center of bioscience research and business. Hunt, who has worked out of DuPont Pioneer’s campus in Johnston, will begin her new role Feb. 19. She replaces Brent Willett, who resigned to become president and CEO of the Iowa Health Care Association. Hunt was government affairs manager for DuPont in Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wisconsin. She represented DuPont in work with the Iowa Business Council, United Way of Central Iowa, the Iowa Biotech Association, the Greater Des Moines Partnership, the College of Human Sciences at Iowa State University, and the Iowa Association of Business and Industry. “Billi has been instrumental in the Cultivation Corridor’s success, and I am confident that she will continue to build off the Cultivation Corridor’s momentum as a premier agbioscience region,” Gage Kent, chairman & CEO of Kent Corp. and chairman of the Cultivation Corridor’s board of directors. Before her role in government affairs, Hunt worked with Optimum Quality Grains LLC, a DuPont/Pioneer joint venture. She also worked as agriculture coordinator for the Greater Des Moines Chamber of Commerce, which evolved into the Greater Des Moines Partnership. Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen, who is on the Cultivation Corridor board, called Hunt’s credentials “exceptional.”