New state GOP chair Thomas Wright has big shoes to fill

Born in Salt Lake City, Wright is the fifth of eight children. He bears the distinction of being one of the first 16 proselytizing missionaries the LDS church sent into Ukraine in the early 1990s. A University of Utah graduate, he and his wife, Caroline, are parents to four children ages 3 to 10. During the late 1970s, his father, Bob Wright, held the same leadership position with the Utah Republican Party that Thomas does now. In the 1980 gubernatorial election, the elder Wright garnered 44.6 percent of Utah's vote in an unsuccessful attempt to unseat incumbent governor Scott Matheson Sr.

"Chairman of the state party is a big volunteer job," Thomas Wright said. "I think a lot of people misunderstand that it's a volunteer job that we do in addition to what we do professionally and the time that we spend with our families.

"I think people recognized me for the hard work I had done (at the county level) in organizing people to get Republicans elected. That put my name out there for state party chair when Dave Hansen resigned, and I was flattered that people thought of me in that light."

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