About KO PR
Fifteen Years of Difficult Conversations Done Right.
Kelsey Dumville founded KO PR & Environmental Consulting on a simple premise: most environmental conflicts aren't really about science or policy. They're about trust.
For over fifteen years, she has helped government agencies, private-sector companies, and environmental organizations navigate the gap between complex environmental challenges and the communities they affect — not by simplifying the message, but by doing the harder work of earning the right to be heard.
From the EPA to the Community Room
Kelsey's career includes work on two of the most complex environmental challenges in New England: the New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site and the GE Housatonic River Site. Both decades-long federal remediation efforts involved federal regulators, major corporations, state agencies, Congressional offices, and communities that had been living with the consequences for generations.
She worked directly with Congressional staff, municipal leaders, and local residents, learning early that the most technically sound remediation plan in the world can fail if the people it affects don't feel seen, respected, and included. She watched trust get built painstakingly, and she watched it collapse in a single poorly run public meeting.
That experience shaped everything.
After the EPA, she moved into the private sector, working in the waste management and energy industries, where she put those same principles to work in a very different context. Communicating with communities near facilities, managing sensitive disclosures, building the kind of relationships that allow hard conversations to happen without becoming crises.
The Personal Why
Kelsey is also a mom. And like most parents, she thinks about the world her children will inherit. That's not a tagline; it's the reason she does this work with the seriousness it deserves.
“The future our children inherit depends on the conversations we're willing to have today,” she’ll tell you. “A healthier environment requires people trusting each other enough to do hard things together. That is what I help make possible”
The Work Is Built on a Belief
KO PR's mission is straightforward: help government agencies, businesses, and environmental organizations know their audiences and communicate in ways that result in successful, trusted outcomes.
What's less obvious until you've worked with Kelsey, is the philosophy underneath that mission.
Communication failures are failures of trust.
When a public comment period generates only anger and opposition, the problem usually started long before the meeting was announced. When a community stops listening, it's rarely because the facts weren't presented clearly enough.
Kelsey's approach rests on three beliefs that guide every engagement:
- Conflict decreases when audiences feel taken seriously and have a genuine seat at the table, not a performative one.
- Clarity is not the same as oversimplification. Complex issues deserve honest explanations, not spin and communities are capable of handling nuance when they're treated with respect.
- The goal is informed, genuine participation. Not perception management. Not getting to "yes" through exhaustion. Real engagement that produces durable outcomes.
The Qualifications Behind the Work
Kelsey brings a combination of credentials that is rare in environmental communications — technical fluency, regulatory experience, facilitation training, and field-level credibility.
Certified Facilitator
Kelsey doesn't just develop stakeholder engagement strategies, she designs the process and runs the room. She is trained and certified in facilitation methods specifically suited to high-tension, multi-stakeholder environments. When things get contentious, she's there, in person, managing the dynamics.
Public Information Officer
She has served as a Public Information Officer during sensitive environmental processes, natural disaster and crisis situations. Managing media relations, coordinating information flow across agencies and stakeholders, and ensuring public communication is accurate, timely, and aligned with regulatory requirements.
HAZWOPER Trained
Her HAZWOPER certification isn't just a line item. It means she has the field-level technical grounding to speak the language of environmental professionals and translate it accurately for community audiences, elected officials, and the press. She understands what she's communicating.
Federal & Private Sector Experience
More than a decade spanning EPA regulatory work, private-sector waste management, and energy giving her a 360-degree view of environmental issues that most communications consultants simply don't have. She's been on all sides of the table.
What Makes This Different
She knows the field from the inside.
Federal, private, and community-level experience means she understands what's actually at stake for every party at the table, not just the client who hired her.
She's been in the difficult rooms.
The roll out of new federal regulations, issuance of environmental permits, superfund site cleanups, contentious public hearings, and community meetings where trust had already broken down — she's navigated some of the most challenging environmental engagement situations in New England and come out with relationships intact.
She facilitates. She doesn't just advise.
KO PR isn't a firm that hands you a strategy document and disappears. Kelsey is there for the implementation — designing the process, showing up in person, and managing what happens when a meeting goes sideways.
She's honest, even when it's complicated.
Clients don't hire Kelsey to tell them what they want to hear. They hire her because she'll tell them what they need to know and then help them figure out how to move forward. That's a rare thing in any consulting relationship.
Let's Talk About What You're Facing
Whether you're preparing for a difficult stakeholder meeting, trying to rebuild trust with a community that has stopped listening, navigating a regulatory process you can't afford to get wrong, or highlighting the positive work you are doing, KO PR was built for you.
You don't have to have it all figured out to reach out. Start with where things are difficult, and we'll go from there.
