After growing up riding her bike on the trails and rowing the rivers of Pittsburgh, Kelsey lived and worked in New York City as a nonprofit manager and then as a nonprofit and economic development attorney. Her first introduction to Friends of the Riverfront was as a board member and volunteer.
Before joining Friends as Executive Director, Kelsey was the Director of the Microenterprise Project at Volunteers of Legal Service (VOLS), an economic development program that provides free legal assistance to under-resourced small businesses and nonprofit organizations. Prior to working at VOLS, Kelsey was an Equal Justice Works Fellow and Staff Attorney at Lawyers Alliance for New York where she designed and implemented a program to provide legal services to nonprofit clients addressing food insecurity. Kelsey has a J.D. from Fordham Law School and a B.A. in Environmental Studies and American Studies from Fordham University.
Kelsey is a Commissioner on the Clean Pittsburgh Commission, currently serves on the Boards of the Great Allegheny Passage Conservancy and the Pittsburgh Safe Boating Council, and served on Mayor Gainey’s Infrastructure and the Environment Transition Committee. She continues to hike, bike, and row along Pittsburgh’s rivers.