Charm City native Wesley Chandler Wood grew up in Northwest Baltimore with his parents and older sister.
Wesley attended Mount Washington Country School for Boys, a military school operated by the Catholic Sisters of Mercy, which has since closed. He then attended the middle school program at Loyola Blakefield, a Jesuit high school in Towson, Maryland. Throughout his primary and secondary school years, he also took classes at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Wesley completed the Honors Program at Loyola High, graduating in 1988. From there, he went on to earn a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from The Johns Hopkins University. Currently, he attends the University of Maryland School of Law at night.
Wesley is the owner of Chandler Consulting Group LLC, a communications firm which specializes in corporate branding, website development, strategic marketing and multimedia PR solutions. He gained valuable experience from stints at the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development, on the press staff of a former Maryland governor, at a Washington, DC-based nonprofit, and from working on political campaigns beginning more than 20 years ago.
Over the years as a community activist, political operative and candidate for public office, Wesley has developed an intimate knowledge of Baltimore’s history, neighborhoods, people, social ills, and policy challenges. He has done so from the perspective of an insider—working for both the Baltimore City Council and State’s Attorney’s Office—as well as from the grassroots level—serving on the local NAACP branch’s executive committee, managing the campaign of political neophyte and local media personality Anthony McCarthy, and writing for a local television news affiliate.
Wesley lives with his wife, Sheryl, on Eutaw Place in the Bolton Hill/Madison Park neighborhoods. He has two daughters (Alexis and Chandler) and a son (Wesley Jr.).
The importance of education was impressed upon Wesley early in life, in fact, education is part of the Wood family legacy. His mother, Roslyn Wood, retired as a teacher from the Baltimore City Public School system. His father, the late Albert Wood, also taught in Baltimore schools and retired from the Maryland Department of Education as a vocational education specialist.
Several other members of Wesley’s family, all now deceased, made education their life’s work. His maternal aunt, Phyllis Green, taught for many years at Calverton Middle School and retired from the Baltimore school system. Another aunt, Iona Wood Collins, operated The Little School and the Park Hill Nursery daycare centers. Wesley’s uncle, John “Junky” Wood, was the longtime principal at what was then known as Joseph C. Briscoe Senior High School at Druid Hill Avenue and Martin Luther King Boulevard.
Wesley’s grandfather, Dr. Francis M. Wood, was the first Director of Colored Schools in Baltimore. After being recruited from what is now Kentucky State University, where he was president, Dr. Wood transformed the educational experience for African American students in Baltimore. For this reason, Baltimore City Public School number 178 was named in his honor—and sits in the 44th District.
