After graduating with an economics degree from UC Berkeley in 1972, Branstrom worked as an analyst for the State of California, Wells Fargo Bank, and UnitedHealth Group. He retired in 2010. Along the way he obtained graduate degrees from UC Davis in economics and UC Berkeley in experimental psychology.
Moving to Grass Valley in 2013, he began volunteering for local community groups. He served as a chaplain at Sierra Nevada Memorial Hospital and later as a board member for Sierra Streams Institute. In 2017, along with others in the Centennial Dam Working Group, he received SYRCL’s Volunteer of the Year Award. He currently serves on Advisory Boards for the Wolf Creek Community Alliance. He entered public service after appointments to Citizen Oversight Committees for both Nevada Union’s Measure B bond issue and Nevada County’s Measure A Library sales tax. He was elected to the Grass Valley City Council in 2020.