Ken Kearns
Principal
kkearns@kearnswest.com

Ken Kearns is a Principal and cofounder of Kearns & West. With nearly four decades of experience framing and communicating with the public some of the most complex energy and infrastructure issues and developments of our time, Ken has long been a senior strategist on more traditional types of public communications and outreach programs. He is also a skilled architect and manager of major collaborative programs and has led in bringing this high-involvement form of public relations to business and government.

Inside PR magazine recognized Ken as “among the most respected counselors in the country” in the arena of “assisting clients with collaborative planning and consensus building,” which Kearns & West has pioneered.

Ken’s collaborative solutions experience includes work in the areas of hydro power, national energy policy, energy supply, transmission pricing and access, facilities siting, pollution prevention, water and wastewater, drought planning, and consumer protection. He led a groundbreaking program for a major electricity provider, helping them decide, jointly with stakeholders, how best to manage and meet electricity demand.

His public-involvement clients have included major companies, such as Duke Energy, and government agencies, including the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Over the years, his facilitation and strategic skills have also been applied to communications and business planning for diverse clients, ranging from Electric Power Research Institute to Dartmouth College.

An engineer by training, Ken remains current on key issues that are important to the firm’s clients.

Ken is based in Kearns & West’s Washington office. He earned a BS in nuclear engineering from North Carolina State University and a PhD in the same field at the University of Arizona. He is an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America. Prior to founding the firm, he held various engineering, management, and public outreach positions at Westinghouse.

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