As the modern world evolves, there’s a growing crossroad between access to financial services and access to efficient, clean energy in underserved communities across the country. It’s at this intersection where Wesley Prewett operates. As the Sustainability Program Manager for Southern Bancorp, he’s working to make a difference for his home state of Arkansas – and beyond.
In this role, Prewett develops loan programs that help small businesses, community institutions, and households access clean energy technologies that will lower their utility costs while benefiting the environment. He also works to assess and quantify the environmental impact of his own organization’s operations and lending activity.
Southern Bancorp, founded in 1986 by some of the nation’s leading political, business, and philanthropic leaders – including then Gov. Bill Clinton – was created to bridge gaps in the financial system, where many rural and underserved communities lacked access to financial services. The impact of this mission-focused style of banking eventually led to federal legislation certifying and allocating resources to support this work, designating them as Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs). Today, there are more than 1,400 CDFIs serving underserved communities across the country, and Southern Bancorp remains one of the oldest and largest.
“Over the past few years, we have learned more and more from our stakeholders, board members, and peer institutions about the need for CDFIs to get involved in sustainability efforts and address inadequate access to clean energy technologies in underserved communities,” he said. “Our CEO began to look around for some internal resources to start working on environmental issues and learned that I was interested. I was working as a data analyst at the time, spending my free time doing research, writing reports, and doing environmental analyses. As the work continued to evolve, I moved into a full-time role focusing on our sustainability programs at the beginning of 2023.”
Prewett, a 2019 graduate of the Clinton School of Public Service, is the first to acknowledge how instrumental the curriculum and faculty were for his professional development, but he’s also quick to point out that his path leading through the Clinton School wasn’t always clear. While studying Finance & Economics at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, he eyed a few different avenues before eventually finding his purpose.
“I was fortunate to get to study abroad while I was an undergraduate, including in Italy after my freshman year and spending a summer working on a chicken farm in Mozambique between my junior and senior year,” he said. “It was a wonderful opportunity, and I became really interested in trying to work at the intersection of sustainability and global development.
“As I was approaching my college graduation, I had applied to a number of law schools but wasn’t sure that I necessarily want to be an attorney, so I decided I’d look around for some other options. I also applied to the Peace Corps and to the Clinton School Public Service. I was admitted to Clinton School and decided that it was a great opportunity for me to explore the variety of fields that I was potentially interested in pursuing.”
During his time in the Master of Public Service degree program, the Russellville, AR, native got the opportunity to deepen his knowledge and experience in both global development and sustainability. He completed his Practicum project with the Wallace Center at Winrock International, working with the organization’s domestic local food systems programs. He then completed his International Public Service Project in Cape Town, South Africa, which was centered on financial accessibility by working with a financial technology start-up that was expanding cash transfer services into remote parts of southern Africa.
While these field service experiences were obviously impactful, Prewett said where he learned the most during his Clinton School experience was the time he spent with members of his cohort.
“What was probably most valuable to me was the sheer diversity of backgrounds and public service interests of my classmates,” he said. “I learned just as much from being in community and in conversation with my cohort as I did in the classroom. I learned more about the world and about other people and their perspectives at the Clinton School than I had anywhere else.
“It was the most diverse group of people I had ever been around, and I learned so much from them based on what they were interested in, their experiences of the world, and their backgrounds. The Clinton School experience broadened my worldview significantly and I feel like I had a better understanding of the challenges that people who were not like me faced every day. It was invaluable to me.”
These lessons, and the skills he learned at the Clinton School, extend to the work he is doing at Southern Bancorp now, he said.
“I’m mostly working to make sure that the underserved communities we work in have the same access to the benefits of clean energy as everyone else. For instance, we work with local small business customers to build solar farms that can offset their utility costs. We can also help community centers or municipalities invest in making their buildings more energy efficient by installing heat pumps or LED lights,” he said. “I am also tasked with understanding and studying the environmental impacts of Southern Bancorp’s operations as a business. We also want to be good stewards of the environmental resources within our footprint.
“It’s very rewarding work for me. I am from Arkansas, and I love Arkansas. I grew up playing in the forests and the rivers of the River Valley and the Ozark Mountains. I’ve always loved our natural spaces and cared about protecting our environment. I’m lucky to get to connect that passion to my career.”
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