Erik Sten

Who is Erik Sten?

Erik Sten is a former City Commissioner in Portland, Oregon, United States. He was first elected to Commissioner Position No. 2 in 1996, in a campaign featuring hundreds of volunteers, defeating Chuck Duffy. He ran successful campaigns for re-election in 1998, 2002, and 2006.

Sten was raised in Portland where he attended Irvington Elementary School, Fernwood Middle School, and Grant High School. Other notable high school classmates of Sten's are Mike Scheckla, the Portland Trail Blazers' mascot, "The Hippy Fan," and punk icon, activist/feminist, musician, Kathleen Hanna. He graduated from Stanford University in 1989 with a BA in English. He currently lives in Bend, OR, where he is the President of Further Development, LLC with his wife, Marnie, and son, Nicholas.

Sten was a founding member of X-PAC, a group of politically minded young citizens, in the mid-1990s, and has participated heavily in the Oregon Bus Project, a similar group formed in the 2000s.

He was also a driving force behind Portland's publicly financed elections system.

Sten was named as one of Oregon's 15 most influential people in 2005.