After 30 years in the military and three deployments to Iraq as an Army reserve, Stacy Garrity will now guard Pennsylvania’s purse.
“I’m good at guarding things,” said Garrity, who will become state treasurer next month. Garrity, a Republican, narrowly
“It was the honor of a lifetime and now I want to serve Pennsylvania.”
In the military, she said, “it doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is. Everyone’s priority is to accomplish the mission.”
According to Pennsylvania Board of Election results, and with some mail-in ballots still not counted, Garrity had 48.7% of the vote while Torsella totaled 47.9%. Torsella conceded on Nov. 10.
Despite the hard-fought race, Garrity and Torsella are working on a seamless transition in Harrisburg. “The transition will be very smooth,” she said in an interview. “Joe and I have had several calls, and he’s been very helpful.”
Garrity, 56, took mandatory retirement from the Army Reserve as a colonel in 2016. Otherwise, she said, she would still be serving.
Citing her service at Camp Bucca, she said Iraqis called her “the Angel of the Desert” for securing the camp with no complaints of abuse from Iraqi soldiers interned there. Her deployments included Operation Desert Storm in 1991; Operation Iraqi Freedom in 2003; and Operation Enduring Freedom in 2008.
She received the Legion of Merit and the Bronze Star, the latter twice.
Recently she has been the vice president at smelting plant Global Tungsten & Powders Corp.
Garrity's campaign focused on enhanced transparency, returning $3.5 billion in unclaimed property to taxpayers and eliminating hidden fees to private money managers that accelerate the commonwealth's pension debt.
She also wants to beef up the Treasury’s transparency portal into an “open checkbook” format.
“Pennsylvanians are looking for leadership in Harrisburg. That’s mainly what people were saying,” said Garrity, who drove up to 500 miles daily while campaigning on a tight budget. “We were not as well funded, so it was truly a grass-roots campaign.”
She also wants to expand on Torsella's buildout of the state’s tax-deductible 529 Tuition Assistance Program to help pay for college. “Joe did really well with that program,” she said. “It went from unrated to silver in two years. We want to continue to build on that.”
She also praised Torsella for “cleaning up” the treasurer’s office. Three of Torsella’s predecessors dating back to the 1980s — Budd Dwyer, Rob McCord and Barbara Hafer — faced federal corruption charges. Dwyer fatally shot himself at a televised news conference in January 1987.
Growing up in rural Athens, a Bradford County borough in north central Pennsylvania near the New York state line, has shaped Garrity’s concern for widespread broadband access.
“There were more cows than people,” Garrity said. “It was very rural.”
After graduating from Sayre High School, she earned a degree in finance and economics from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and later received a certificate from the Cornell University Business Management Institute.
She sits on the Bradford County United Way board and is a Guthrie Hospital trustee.
Her husband, Daniel Gizzi, is a project analyst at Corning Inc.
Garrity’s election marked the first time a Republican toppled a Democratic incumbent in a statewide race since 1994.
The elections of Garrity and Dauphin County Controller Tim DeFoor as state auditor general mean the Republicans flipped two of three statewide offices Democrats had held since 2012.
DeFoor edged former Philadelphia Deputy Treasurer Nina Ahmad for the seat vacated by Democrat Eugene DePasquale, who lost a congressional race to Republican and 10th District incumbent Scott Perry.
