Senior Advisor for Programs
KEITH WELKS is Senior Advisor for Programs at FREE. In that role, he assists senior Foundation officials in identifying market gaps caused by i) absence of financing solutions and ii) limitations of internal capacity of public and non-governmental entities relating to clean and efficient energy opportunities. He helps develop and deploy responsive programs and other measures for our clients. Where appropriate, he also contributes to the formulation and articulation of policies supportive of the implementation of such programs and measures.
A graduate of Lafayette College and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Mr. Welks has devoted almost his entire career to advancing environmental protection and remediation through public and non-profit service. He served stints at the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources as a regional litigation counsel and then as agency chief counsel, created and was the first chief deputy attorney of the Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General’s Environmental Crimes Unit, and created and led a non-profit actively promoting the remediation and reuse of brownfields in the Commonwealth. He then served for more than 15 years as a deputy treasurer in the Pennsylvania Treasury Department, where he created (or co-created) several financing programs that made low-cost capital available for clean and energy efficient measures in the residential and MUSH sectors.