Today, Mary Barthelson, an engineer from Reston, officially announced her candidacy for the Virginia House of Delegates in HD-36 in the Democratic primary against Delegate Kenneth Plum. Mary Barthelson was born and raised in Northern Virginia. She obtained her master’s degree in systems engineering from George Mason University. She has worked as a data analyst and currently works as a security engineer. Barthelson is also the owner of PPE 4 NOVA, which was established to help provide Virginians access to masks. PPE 4 NOVA provided around 13,000 items, with around 10,000 donations. In her spare time, Mary has worked as an advisor to a non-profit which counters foreign disinformation campaigns.

“I am running against Kenneth Plum because we need an engineer’s eye to communicate technology and innovation to policymaking and the public.

I will work to create green energy jobs and end our dependence on fossil fuels. Fact: this campaign won’t take a dime from Dominion Energy, which overcharged Virginians $500 million between 2017 and 2019. I am beholden to no one but the people I seek to represent and will be fueling my campaign with grassroots support.

Our campaign is about closing the gap between low-income and high-income schools and reduce barriers to entry into the workforce for low-income Virginians.

By utilizing my systems engineering experience to streamline pandemic relief, I will fight to deploy the 98% of small business loan funds that have gone unspent. We need to do more. Addressing many of these challenges is time-sensitive and my background makes me uniquely qualified to address them.”

Learn more about Barthelson’s candidacy on her website and through social media on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.