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When her mother went back to college at age 38 to get her sociology degree, Michelle Wright, then a fifth-grader, cracked open her textbooks.

"Watching her and reading her books made me want to help people and dedicate my life to helping people," Wright said.

Wright, 54, of Mitchellville hopes to put a lifetime of public service experience to use in Annapolis as a District 25 representative in the Maryland House of Delegates. She is running for one of three open seats in November. District 25 covers areas such as District Heights, Forestville, Largo and Mitchellville. As of Wednesday, Dereck E. Davis, Erek Barron, Antonio Faunteroy and Davion E. Percy had filed for the same race, according to the Maryland State Board of Elections.

Wright said her mother, Sarah Wright, was a counselor who assisted veterans with job training and finding employment. Like her mother, she also majored in sociology, but at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

"I was looking to work in the area of public service, and it has been my lifelong goal and desire to be a public servant," Wright said.

Wright worked for 17 years in Montgomery County and Virginia's Prince William County business and economic development departments and from 1994 to 2009 served on the Prince George's County Tax Appeals Board, where she reviewed the county's tax base and made sure residential and business properties were assessed fairly.

Wright is running out of concern for veterans' health and the county's high infant mortality and foreclosure rates, she said. Her goals include a prenatal care educational campaign with visits to women in civic- and faith-based groups, a pilot medical record coding program for veterans in need of automated health records, and funding for vets suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.

She is also focused on retraining workers who lost their jobs and concerned with the county's export of valuable employment to surrounding counties in Maryland and Virginia.

"We have one of the most robust and skilled work forces in the nation," Wright said. "We have what we need in a work force; we just send them somewhere else."

Donna Hurley met Wright several years ago when Hurley started her Oxon Hill-based nonprofit organization Housing Options and Planning Enterprises Inc. to offer foreclosure counseling. She admires Wright's drive to help others, such as helping state residents with home down-payment assistance through the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development.

"She's just a person of the community, a person that's about helping, about service," Hurley said. "Since I've known her that's what she's done."

Martha Connolly, director of the Maryland Industrial Partnerships, met Wright in 1997 when they both worked for the state's Department of Business and Economic Development. Connolly said Wright's connections may be able to bring in minority businesses to communities affected by the federal Base Realignment and Closure, which would bring new jobs to Joint Base Andrews.

"She's just a ball of fire," Connolly said. "And she doesn't let anything stand in the way of getting things done, and that's why I think she'd make such a great candidate."

E-mail Natalie McGill at nmcgill@gazette.net.

Position sought, party affiliation: Maryland House of Delegates, District 25; Democrat

Place of residence: Lake Arbor, Mitchellville, for 15 years

How long lived in the county: 32 years

Age: 54

Place of birth: Yokosuka, Japan

Current occupation: Business development consultant

Education: Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology, Howard University, Washington, D.C. Also, 48 graduate hours at Howard University in urban studies/housing and community development

 Community associations: Active member of the Prince George's County Alumni Chapter Delta Sigma Theta; Prince George's County Chapter Howard University Alumni Association, membership chair; active member, Prince George's County National Association of Real Estate Brokers; Coalition for Home-Ownership Preservation; member, Prince George's Community College Center for Minority Business; 12-year appointment, Prince George's County Tax Appeals Board; 5-year member, Governor's Commission on Hispanic Affairs; Howard University Chapel

 Family: Single; no children

 Campaign telephone number: 301-769-6840