ABOUT CHRIS
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Chris was the 9th born in a family of 12 children to a working class family (Pictured bellow, with Chris in the lower left) and grew up in the high desert town of Palmdale, Ca. (right on The San Andreas Fault line) located 50 miles north of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert, near Edwards Air Force Base (Where The Space Shuttle Landed, Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier, and Poncho Barnes ran the Happy Bottom Riding Club “resort" to the stars).
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Early OnChris grew up in a double Brady Bunch of 6 boys and 6 girls, where hide & seek (or any activity) rarely suffered from a lack of members on a team. Chris thrived in this utter chaos.
"I see myself as Nine of Twelve, like Star Trek’s 'Seven of Nine,' and consider it a badge of honor to have grown up in a large family. E pluribus unum... From many, comes one. I work best with groups of people, because they are always a wild mix of personalities, so I feel right at home in their midst. I come out of the box hardwired to be among the many... I don’t need a ‘We’ patch in my code,” quips Chris. Chris was raised Irish Roman Catholic and has German Ashkenazi Jewish family heritage, but considers himself more of a humanist and skeptic. |
WorkChris is a Teamster truck driver and has worked for his current company, YRC Freight (Yellow-Roadway Corporation) for almost 15 years, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and several brothers, who also drove trucks.
Prior to YRC, Chris was a concrete ready-mix truck driver and before that was a structural/surface mechanic for McDonnell Douglas on MD-11s and MD-80s and was an electrical/electronic mechanic for Rockwell International NAAO on the B1 bomber. Chris has also done various construction jobs setting forms, tying steel, finishing concrete, laying brick, block and stone, setting tile, cleaning chimneys, operating equipment, and mudding and taping drywall. |
EducationChris attended public school and didn’t graduate from Palmdale High School, opting, rather, in his junior year to exit by taking the GED through Antelope Valley Adult School.
Chris began taking college courses in basic math and english at Antelope Valley College in 1989. In 1991-92, Chris transferred to Santa Monica College and started taking college credit courses.
Determined to continue working on his education, Chris started attending Clackamas Community College, after moving to Oregon in 1998.
Soon after that (2001) Chris started attending Portland State University, where Chris continues to work toward a Communication Studies major and a Civic Leadership minor. |
PoliticalChris is a proud state committee board member of the Oregon Progressive Party and and was a Pacific Green Party of Oregon member, state co-chair and US Green Party national delegate prior to 2010. Chris often is co-nominated by both the OPP and the PGP.
Chris considers his main philosophies to be green, socialist and progressive, drawing heavily on Marxist and anarchist critical theory and radical Gandhian nonviolent thought & praxis. In the beginning of 2020, Chris changed his political party registration to the Independent Party of Oregon and ran in the IPO primary to run for Oregon State Treasurer. Chris won that race against the incumbent Oregon State Treasurer, Tobias Read (D) and his challenger, a Lake Oswego city council member, Jeff Gudman (R). Just as Chris ran twice for Oregon State Governor (2014 and 2018), Chris is running for Oregon State Treasurer (for the second time) in the 2020 general Election, again, against Read and Gudman. |
“Artists use lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover it up.” ~ Evey