With nearly 20 years of experience in public health, Renee Keats combines her passion for quality patient advocacy with her experience in health care project management and customer relations. She has held multiple roles, each advancing in responsibility over her career, working with award-winning organizations including Gottlieb/West Town PHO, Deloitte Consulting, The Orsini Group of Home Care Agencies and American Imaging Management.
Ms. Keats earned her Master’s in Public Health from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2000 and has since devoted her professional career to helping at-risk populations access health and medical care. In 2013, Ms. Keats became a Licensed Illinois State Affordable Care Act Navigator and Coordinator, leading a team of ACA licensed Health Navigators who help provide counsel to the ACA marketplace and Medicaid enrollment assistance to those in need.
Just as passionately, Ms. Keats works to ensure that Illinois families are aware of and have access to quality and healthy food. In 2013, she was selected to join the Illinois Farm Families as a Field Mom to learn more about farm families and how food is grown in Illinois. Armed with facts, through her personal blog, A Windy City Momma, and as a guest blogger for other sites, Ms. Keats views herself as an advocate for Illinois Farm Families and strives to continue using the knowledge she gained through her experience as a Field Mom to tell well-rounded stories about Illinois’ food production system.
As a self described “foodie,” Ms. Keats and her husband are slow-food movement enthusiasts. Ms. Keats lives with her husband and daughter in the Chicago suburbs and she enjoys sailing, gardening, and cooking.
