South Carolina, Washington, DC
Billy Keyserling brings a wealth of experience in public affairs, public policy, business, marketing and public service to his position as Mayor of Beaufort.
After a career in Washington, DC where he held positions in the US House and Senate, directed political campaigns from City Council to President of the United States, directed the Washington Office of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry working domestically and abroad to free Jews from the former USSR and worked in the private sector public affairs arena, Keyserling returned to his home state of SC in 1989.
Billy served two terms in the South Carolina House of Representatives where he focused on ridding the state of nuclear waste, equitable taxes and education reform, and served as Vice Chair of the Legislative Energy Committee, a unique honor for a freshman legislator. Given his distaste for gridlock and partisan bickering, Billy was elected to his second term as a non-partisan petition candidate and did not run for a third term because he realized he could accomplish more in non-partisan local government.
Keyserling earned a state wide, if not national, reputation for his doggedness when, after serving in the SC House, he waged a one-man legal battle against the U.S. Department of Energy over unsafe nuclear waste storage at the Savannah River Site, and the suit was settled through mediation.