HARRISBURG — Gov.-elect Tom Corbett tapped a coal company president and prominent GOP campaign donor from central Pennsylvania on Thursday to head the state agency responsible for numerous community and business aid programs.

Alan Walker of Bradford Energy Co. will head the Department of Community and Economic Development, Corbett announced. The Clearfield County resident is Corbett’s first cabinet nominee.

Corbett, the state’s Republican attorney general, will be sworn in Jan. 18 as governor. After that, Walker must pass a Senate confirmation vote to assume the job on a permanent basis.

Walker, 66, is a member and past chairman of the Pennsylvania Chamber of Business and Industry and the Pennsylvania Coal Association, and has an outstanding record of civic and community work, Corbett said.

For many years, Walker’s company was prominent among Pennsylvania’s surface mining companies. He exited mining about eight years ago to concentrate on being a coal broker.

Walker will stop working at Bradford Energy and put his ownership stake into a blind trust, a Corbett spokesman said.

Walker received a bachelor’s in economics from Bucknell University, where he is a trustee, and a master’s in business administration from Penn State.

He worked as a products manager for the chemical maker Dupont in Wilmington, Del., before returning to the small town of Bigler to join his family’s business and become president of Bradford Energy in 1975, according to an online biography at Bucknell.

He has served on the boards of a number of community and civic institutions, including Clearfield Area Health Services.