about me

Hello, my name is Jonathan Sanford. I grew up in Boring Oregon (yes, really). I am the son of a middle school special needs teacher, and an environmental engineer. I grew up in the woods out side of Gresham in a log cabin. After graduation from Sam Barlow High I joined the Oregon Army National Guard and trained at Fort Leonardwood Missouri. I came home in 2001 and started Community College at Mount Hood. After many years of working and school I was called up to Iraq in the winter of 2004 (December 26th to be exact). I shipped off from Portland with in two months of that notice and I spent 15 months deployed. When I returned home I impudently joined back up in school and then later transferred to Portland State University. When I arrived to PSU I was regretting working towards a business degree and after a conversation with Dr. Jean Campbell I decided to change my degree to Cultural Anthropology with a focus on the Middle East. I spent two years focusing on this degree before becoming involved in the Student Fee allocation process for the student group I was a part of, the Student Veterans Association. The process for funding was dam near illegal if not completely illegal and after they were quoted on saying sexist and racist remarks i decided that "it was on" and I was going to change it. I had a list of items that needed to be changed at PSU and the SFC process kicked me into motion. I have since won the election for student body president and have been looking into committing the changes that I had originally and passionately started after. A lot of people ask me, "what do you want to be", and before this process started I was training to be a fire fighter at Sauvie's Island Fire Department, and I had just finished my EMT-Basic training. With that being said, I had worked in the office of Congresswoman Darlene Hooley, and the office of Earl Blumenauer, and politics was a growing passion of mine. At this point I am looking at completing my education by achieving a Masters in Public Administration and looking into public service in some way. In all reality public service is where my heart lies and I could not be happier working against insurmountable odds with little resources because I have always felt that it comes down to the people around me and the mission rather than my own personal needs. We will see.