Erin Kelbly Joins Planning Staff

Born near Waco in the town of Hewitt, Erin spent her childhood in central Texas, later moving to College Station and Austin.

She stayed through college, attending the University of Texas at Austin, where she earned bachelor’s degrees in Geography and International Relations and Global Studies. After graduation, Erin decided to join the AmeriCorps program, bringing her to Knoxville. Her first position placed her with the City of Oak Ridge as a Stormwater Technician in their public works department.

At the end of her one-year contract she decided to complete another year of service with the AmeriCorps program and accepted a position with the Office of Sustainability at the University of Tennessee.

During the year that she served at UT she also attended Roane State Community College and earned a certification in GIS.

Erin then started working part-time with Knox County Stormwater, and later was able to land a full-time position at Wood Environment and Infrastructure Solutions as their head GIS Analyst. During her time there she put her GIS skills to work making maps for environmental projects, configuring their GPS units, and conducting data analysis through GIS field efforts. The company does work all over the country, contracting with the government, railroads, and others. During her time at Wood she realized she wanted to get back into the public sector, which is what attracted her to the vacant position at Planning.

As a Planning Services Technician, Erin is splitting her time between GIS tasks, plat review, and customer service. She is happy to have this variation in her work.

You’ll recognize in your first interaction with her that Erin is a people person and is happy to meet with customers to assist them with whatever needs they have.

When she isn’t at work, you can find Erin out exploring Knoxville. She bought a house in the Oakwood neighborhood in April of 2019 and is happily settling in to the area. She can also be found road biking, longboarding, doing jigsaw puzzles, or at a live music or comedy show.

We’re excited to have her on board and look forward to getting her up to speed on all the work our agency does. We know she’ll make great contributions to our work in her time here!