About Brian Kelly continued

Though he did not want to be asking people for money and disrupting the lives of people he loved, Kelly did not want to hand the election to a thirteen term incumbent without a fight. Kanjorski's legacy had become more important than the people he served. So, after a respectable showing in the primary, to help all of us here in NEPA, Kelly joined with the Lou Barletta campaign. His job was to remind Democrats that it is OK  to not vote for a Democrat when a Republican is the better person. Lou Barletta won the election and has given Northeastern PA the best representation possible in 2011 and 2012 in the 112th Congress and again in the 113th Congress. .

Not recognizing that there would be many wounds that would still be sore if "Kanjo" lost, even before the general election of 2010, Kelly made it known to faculty peers and others at Marywood that he was fairly sure he would be running for the US Senate. In early fall, 2011, the Independence Hall Tea Party endorsed Brian Kelly for US Senate at Independence Mall, Philadelphia. Unfortunately, a great friend of WIlkes-Barre, Mr. Martin L. Devaney became gravely ill and passed into the Lord's hands. Kelly withdrew from the formal Senate race, and did not carry any nominating petitions to get on the ballot. However, he did suggest on his web site that he was a write-in candidate so that those who knew him would be able to cast their vote his way. He received word after the 2012 Primary that the vote tallies would show that many Democrats and Republicans wrote in Brian Kelly for US Senate.

Unfortunately, when Kelly changed his status to write-in, the Independence Hall Tea Party withdrew its endorsement.  

For years, Brian has been writing patriotic articles for conservativeactionalerts.com and conbustible.com, two one time very popular conservative websites. Neither site cared if you were a D or an R, as long as you were conservative in the spirit of JFK and/or Ronald Reagan. Over the years, has also submitted many letters to the Times Leader in Wilkes-Barre though only about 1/3 of the submissions are published. All of the articles that Brian has submitted over the years are available for reading on this site.

Prior to writing fifty-six books and hundreds of patriotic and political articles, Mr. Kelly was an IT professional and in this capacity, he wrote many highly technical articles about IBM's AS/400 computer system. For his AS/400 system contributions, Kelly likes to say that he was highly compensated both for technical pieces and for his technical books but he smiles when he says, “those days are gone.”

Kelly receives no compensation at all for his patriotic and public writing efforts. Additionally, when he ran for Congress in 2010, as previously noted, Brian did not take any donations, and he received no contributions for his write-in Senate campaign of 2012. Kelly's heart was not in it and so even before the election, he released his supporters from voting for him though many persisted. in writing him in for US Senate in the general election.

Kelly proudly endorsed Tom Smith for US Senator from Pennsylvania v. Robert P. Casey Jr. Tom Smith is a real Pennsylvanian. Kelly also endorsed Lou Barletta for his second term in the House of Representatives. Kelly is a JFK Democrat and as such he does not approve of the liberal / progressive ways of Senator Robert P. Casey Jr. "Casey does not support the people of Northeastern PA," Kelly said. 

Personal Information

Brian Kelly is very pleased to be married to the former Patricia Piotroski and the couple resides in Northeastern Pennsylvania as they have all their married life of thirty-nine years --- but who’s counting?  The Kelly’s are proud parents of three adult children, Brian, Michael, and Katie. Ben the Dog, and Buddie the Cat are adopted but to this day they have muscled in on all feed bag and table drop opportunities as if they were natural born.

Brian Sr. was born and "raised" in Wilkes-Barre PA. He attended St. Boniface Grade School and Meyers High School.  While at St. Boniface, Brian spotted Pat at the Parrish St. Pool, and as all young boys were at the time, he was quite intrigued. Pat reaches back every now and then in her memory banks and finds the image from the Parrish Street Pool, of a rather chubby lad with a crew cut and a boxer shorts-type bathing suit up past his belly button just making it around his stomach. Her comments have been edited out of this article. 

Brian admits it was probably himself for sure as a well fortified less than 10-year old, but nonetheless he relishes the old memories of Pat and her buddy Mary going off the ten foot diving board. Thankfully, at the time, Brian never knew or cared what time it was and he never asked Pat for the time of day-- so there are no bad memories from Parrish Pool.

Brian might say that his biggest romance for four years from ages 15 to 19, got married to somebody else, Pat felt like it was OK to seek him out. But then again, Brian is a dreamer and there is no truth to that. Like all young men that are smitten by a wonderful lady, Brian humbly pursued Patricia in the ways of the day. In 1975, they were married and with their family, they are still living happily ever after.

Though he always played a lot of ball -- basketball, football, and his best sport, baseball, by the time he got to Meyers, Brian lost the chub and the crew-cut and began to look a bit more like a student athlete. Ignoring study as long as he could, in his sophomore year, Kelly picked it up a bit and eventually became a member of the National Honor Society but he liked sports a lot more than studying. On the sports side, Brian was both a pitcher and a catcher on the Meyers High Baseball team. He was also active in many school clubs, intramural sports, as well as the student council.

Kelly enjoyed high school immensely, other than school work itself. During these years, he gave up his career as a pinboy at the Wilkes-Barre Republics Club, and became a delivery boy for the Eagle Bottling Works (Zep-Up). Kelly loved working on that soda truck, especially at holiday time. While holding the job on the soda truck, Brian took over his brother Ed’s paper route. All of these income sources helped him move from a two-pair-of-pants-a-year guy to four pair a year. BTW, when one of the two pants got a hole in the knee, there was always the other pair to wear. Brian jokes that "neither me, nor my brothers and sisters knew we were poor." 

Along the way, Kelly notes that having an income at an early age also helped in gaining existential items such as pizza and a third and fourth pair of pants if needed each year. Like many from Meyers, Brian was surprised to find people caring about his life, and appearing annoyed when he did not achieve as much as he should.

In this regard, he found a life guidance from the Meyers High School Guidance department. He was induced by Enso Frosini, a great man, who recently passed on to the Lord. This great man was the #1 Meyers HS Counselors. He convinced Brian to take a scholarship test at King's College in Wilkes-Barre. For this effort, Kelly was the most surprised when he won an academic scholarship to King's College and with the help of a National Defense Student Loan, and the Work-Study Program, he was able to get through college.

On the way into King’s College, Kelly, Joe Grant, and Pete Gill were featured as the scholarship winners in a Times Leader article. Maybe that is why Brian likes the Times Leader paper so much. Four years later, he graduated cum laude from King's with a B.S. degree in Data Processing. Pete Gill was valedictorian and Joe Grant also graduated with honors. Kelly likes the fact that all three were friends throughout college.

Kelly’s degree in Data Processing was the pre-cursor degree to Business Information Technology.  While at King's, Brian was a member of two honor societies, the King's Aquinas Society, and the Delta Epsilon Sigma National Honor Society.  Brian played Varsity Baseball for the Monarchs as a catcher and then as a starting pitcher in his Junior and Senior years.

After King's, he joined the IBM Corporation as a Computer Science Systems Assistant where he spent 23 years before retiring under a special program. This generic job title given by IBM on day one of his career was because the company sent their marketing representatives and their systems engineers through the same 1.5 year training program.

When this initial training was over, IBM and the new employee decided which path they would take. Brian chose the technical / systems side of the business. Twenty three years later, he had risen to the same internal rank as his local Scranton IBM Manager, "Senior Systems Engineer." IBM put a deal on the table for all employees. He could not refuse such a generous deal so Brian left the IBM Company with a very nice separation package in 1993.

During his IBM career, Kelly earned his M.B.A. in Accounting and Finance from Wilkes University.  After his time at IBM (23 years), while his children were pre-adolescent, Brian locked in free college educations for the couple's three children when the Dean of Administration at College Misericordia carved out an employment package that again Kelly could not refuse. So, he accepted a position with College Misericordia as its Technology Manager / Internal IT Consultant.

At the same time, in accordance with the terms of his College Misericordia position, Kelly initiated his own IT consulting practice. The practice is still operative, though not very active. The business is known as Kelly Consulting. From the moment he got his MBA in 1979, Kelly has been teaching IT classes part-time at College Misericordia, King's, Penn State, LCCC, Marywood, and other institutions.

After building the College Misericordia campus network, its connection to the Internet, its email and its Web servers, Kelly left College Misericordia and moved on to spend full time in his own IT business consulting practice.

In 2004, the IT Program Director and the Chairman of the Business Department at Marywood University asked Brian to join their faculty because of his unique Business and IT skills. In addition to maintaining his consulting practice; Kelly served Marywood as its IT consultant to the Faculty as well as an Assistant Professor of Business Information Technology. Kelly maintained these positions until his separation in May 2011.

In 2010, Brian ran for Congress as a conservative Democrat as previously discussed. He then helped Lou Barletta win a victory in the General Election to give NEPA better representation and to give America a chance.

Brian's campaign manager was Marty Devaney, one of the finest people God ever placed on this planet.  Kelly and Devaney both played for Meyers’ City Championship Baseball Team and had been friends for many years.  After Brian launched his campaign for the US Senate in fall 2011, and had received the prestigious endorsement of the Independence Hall Tea Party, Marty Devaney became very sick and eventually passed on to the Lord from his illness. Brian stopped his campaign but then was encouraged to continue by Marty and others and he began a write-in campaign for the US Senate.

Though none of this effort was for kicks, Brian loves to say that without Marty on the team, the person who had taken him aside and had encouraged him to help the people through political channels; it was no longer fun. Being engaged in politics became like work and it was a more difficult scenario in which to engage.

Even after continuing in the Primary Senate Race, Kelly knew he was little more than a stepchild to a system designed to elect only entrenched politicians. Unlike complete Independents, Brian was a Democrat but the Democrats are not interested in expanding their pool of potential candidates. In both his congressional and his senate bids, Kelly was not invited to any Democratic Party events, even when in the congressional race he won the # 1 position on the ballot. 

With no hard feelings to the Democratic leaders in Luzerne County and Wilkes-Barre, Brian has come to grips with the fact that real politicians do not function simply because they are called to help the people. 

Democrats in leadership positions do not care about Democrats who have not signed up to be lifetime politicians. After two years, Kelly is still waiting for the state of PA and Luzerne County to tell him exactly how many write in votes he received in the county and across the state. One would think that in a democracy those things would just happen automatically, regardless of the candidate. He will probably never know. 

There are lots of articles on this site in which you can learn about how things are not always as they seem. I hope you enjoy them. Feel free to make a comment