_best_ | Owen Brandano

“You can,” Sal said. Then he looked at Owen. Really looked at him, for the first time in years. “Brandanos build things,” he said. “Second chances included.”

The case that found him, on a rain-slicked Tuesday in November, was a whisper of a thing. A teenager named Miguel Reyes had been picked up for a B&E at a shuttered textile mill. Open-and-shut, the DA said. Caught inside, crowbar in hand, duct tape on his fingers. owen brandano

His father, Sal, ran Brandano & Sons Paving. “Sons” was optimistic, as Owen was an only child who preferred books to blacktop. Sal was a bull of a man who believed a handshake was a contract and a contract was a promise written in blood—or at least in asphalt. The Brandano name, to Sal, meant a job done square, a street smoothed over, a pothole filled before the town clerk finished her coffee. “You can,” Sal said

Here are a few possibilities you might be looking for: “Brandanos build things,” he said

The family has partnered with organizations like Song for Charlie to deliver fact-based programs at schools, including Chaminade College Preparatory and Immaculate Heart, reaching thousands of students. Their advocacy emphasizes that: