Where some see coincidence in the crucial events of one’s life, 62-year-old Chris Wright sees the divine.
by Kimberly Hartley September 6, 2024
McKnights Long Term Care News, Vol 45, No 6 | Link to PDF of Article
A believer in God and hard work, Wright remembers being a young CPA watching from his window as an office building was built from the ground up. The business inside — the Brian Center Corp. — eventually hired him as a financial analyst for its skilled nursing operations. Wright found his calling and realized something else.
“There are people behind the numbers,” he says.
Wright, now president and CEO of Connecticut-based iCare Health Network, grew up in Vale, NC. The rural, unincorporated town sits about 20 minutes south of Hickory and was just 15 minutes away from Robin, the high school sweetheart, who later became his wife.
Wright and his older sister were raised in a one-bathroom farmhouse built by his great-great grandfather in 1891. They attended church every Sunday and knew that anything they had was hard-earned. His mother, Nancy, operated a day care in their home for 40 years and his father, Hatley, worked in retail and warehouse roles. Wright paid for college working full-time at a pharmacy and later selling Wrangler jeans in a retail store.
His humble upbringing, “made me who I am,” Wright says. “A lot of my childhood was really enriched in, and focused on, my parents instilling good moral values.”
Those values were evident to Rob Salazar, Wright’s business partner and longtime friend.
“He always struck me from the beginning as an honest and decent human being,” Salazar says of Wright.