Pete Weldy

Mr. Pete Weldy joins the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) with extensive experience working to advance the welfare, health, and happiness of children and families across the country. As the Region 9 regional administrator (RA), Weldy is responsible for leading ACF’s strategic initiatives and priorities in Arizona, California, Hawaii, Nevada, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Marshall Islands, Republic of Palau, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. 

Prior to joining ACF, Weldy worked at California Strategies, the state’s largest public affairs consulting firm, where he led large-scale communication campaigns and worked with California’s leading business associations and nonprofit organizations to support their engagement with local and state government. He is a skilled communicator, public speaker, and strategic planner who has worked with many community-based organizations, philanthropies, elected officials, and business leaders to impact policymakers on issues relating to early childhood development, K-12 education, affordable housing, homelessness, and transportation.

He also served as the director of public policy at Silicon Valley Community Foundation where he led lobbying, strategic initiatives, policy development, and other public affairs activities for the largest community foundation in the United Sates. Weldy supported the development and implementation of policies designed to address the most pressing community needs, including finding solutions for Silicon Valley’s homelessness crisis.

In addition, Weldy led Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s successful Choose Children 2018 campaign, a multi-million-dollar effort to make young children and families a priority in the 2018 California Governor’s race. He also planned the largest televised debate in California history, watched by more than a million Californians, and hosted in partnership with NBC, KQED, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

Weldy is a native Hoosier and served in numerous executive positions in Indiana state government, including as the director of policy and research at the Department of Education and chief legislative aid to the leadership in the House of Representatives.

At the Indiana Department of Education, he served on the Superintendent’s executive cabinet and worked to draft Indiana’s State Plan under the Every Student Succeeds Act. He also worked closely with the Superintendent to craft a new strategic plan for the Department, administered a $70 million grant distributed as bonuses to teachers, and drafted legislation for Indiana to build a universal system of support for young children. He also has an intimate knowledge of longitudinal data systems and FERPA.

Weldy is a former teacher and received his BA in Music and Education from Butler University in Indianapolis. He lives in San Francisco with his wife Karla.