Coastal engineer and co-founder of Porchlight Inc. Phillip Keillor, 71, died Friday of injuries suffered in a fall at a Madison ice rink 12 days earlier.
Keillor had accompanied his granddaughter to the ice rink, fell backward and hit his head on the ice, according to his wife Ann-Britt Keillor. The head injury from the fall led to Keillor's death.
In the 1980s, Keillor was a Madison resident who pushed for a homeless shelter after three men died of exposure during one severe winter. Eventually, the shelter spawned Porchlight Inc., which helps serve homeless in the Madison downtown area.
Steve Schooler, Porchlight's executive director, spoke of Keillor's compassion in an interview with the Wisconsin State Journal.
""What was really important about him was his compassion for people in desperate straits,"" Schooler said. ""He saw them as real human beings, not problems.""
Keillor spent most of his career at the UW-Madison Sea Grant Institute researching and providing outreach activities on Great Lakes issues. Later in his career, Keillor was a pioneer for the effects of climate change on the Great Lakes. Keillor retired from the institute in 2003.
Keillor's brother is Garrison Keillor, host of the popular radio program, ""A Prairie Home Companion.""
