For Brandon Oles, his experiences as a Marine, a Texas State University student leader/organizer and a project manager in the construction industry all stand out in his campaign for San Marcos City Council Place 2, preparing him to interact with the community and make informed policy decisions.
“The core of why I’m running is because we need council members who are going to represent the people, who are going to go out of their way to take the time to sit down with them. I’m not just talking about people on the left or the right. I’m talking about all of the people in San Marcos.”
Oles was born on an Air Force base near Spokane, Washington (both parents were in the Air Force), but grew up in East Texas.
“I spent most of my childhood on the south end of Lake Sam Rayburn in a small town called Brookeland. Then I went to high school up near Nacogdoches in a small town called Woden.”
He joined the Marines when he was 18, training as a radio operator, and doing a tour of Afghanistan in 2011 in the “Green Zone” along the Sangin Valley. “We were there to destroy the poppy fields and cut the funding source for the Taliban.”
After eight years in the Marines, he received a medical discharge after developing Type 1 Diabetes. “You can’t serve in the Marine Corps if you’re a diabetic. … if I’m out there training and push my body too hard, and I burn too much blood sugar, I could collapse.”
After Oles left the Marine Corps, he moved to San Antonio with a girlfriend who happened to be a Texas State alum. She convinced him to apply to TXST on the GI Bill.
At Texas State, he earned a degree in Construction Science. Now he’s an Assistant Project Manager for a general contracting firm, overseeing commercial construction projects. This experience will be helpful in navigating infrastructure contracts and working with developers as a council member, according to Oles.
“I work on multi billion-dollar construction projects, managing the scheduling, the contract, finances, all the languages I need to speak to better ensure that we have all this development coming into San Marcos. We need someone who can properly have these conversations with new developers, residential and commercial architects … about the electrical grid, the water grid … I do this for a living.”
It was as a Texas State student that Oles decided to get involved with community organizations and student government.
“I wanted to give back to the veteran community. So I became president of the Veterans Alliance at Texas State. I also became the Senator representing veterans in student government.”
He believes the wide range of people he worked with in the Marines and as a student leader at Texas State has prepared him for reaching out to the varied population in San Marcos.
“The veteran community is the single most diverse population you have. Veterans are Democrat or Republican, Muslim or Christian, they’re black, white, green, purple. They come from the city, the country, rich backgrounds, poor backgrounds, you name it. … we all have this understanding that what unites us is more important than the things that divide us.”
Other campaign plans which Oles highlights include creating an energy policy that will lighten the load on the electric grid by prioritizing the installation of solar panels; hosting Town Hall meetings to provide more direct interaction with citizens; and offering incentives to developers who specialize in less expensive housing.
“Housing is available in this area,” Oles said. “It’s just not affordable, because too many developers came in and they started pushing all these $500,000 homes.”
