Brian Wrightson was brought to this race because he is watching his children and grandchildren leave Northeastern Pennsylvania due to a lack of jobs, unaffordable housing, and a regional decline in opportunity. That reality is not acceptable to him.
Wrightson was born and raised in Jessup. His maternal grandfather, Ed Giombetti, was a World War II veteran who taught himself accounting to do more for his family and his community after his family emigrated from Italy. His paternal grandfather, Jack Wrightson, was a union foreman in the coal mines and later a union safety inspector. Both sides of his family worked these same coal mines for generations. NEPA isn’t just where Wrightson lives; it is who he is, and it is where his dirty hands and scars formed his attitude to fight for what is needed and what is right.
Wrightson was the first in his family to get a college degree, working full-time through school on second shifts and overnight because that is what it took. He has spent over 35 years building infrastructure, managing emergency response, and expanding broadband to communities that have been left behind. Wrightson knows this region from the inside, having driven its back roads, walked its farms, and climbed its towers.
- He has watched families in farmhouses experience high-speed internet for the first time and seen what opportunities it opens for them.
- On September 11, 2001, Wrightson was in a communications center keeping critical systems running for NEPA communities.
- He has seen what happens when Harrisburg doesn’t show up for NEPA, and he knows what is possible when someone does.
He is not running because he has always wanted to be a politician. Wrightson is running because life has become too expensive for too many people, too many politicians are disconnected from the realities working families face, and he has spent his entire career fixing things. That is exactly what he intends to do in Harrisburg.
