Erik Sten (born October 1967 in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

) is an American politician who served as a member of the Portland City Commission from 1997 to 2008.

Early life and education

Sten was born in

and raised in

Portland, Oregon Portland (, ) is a port city in the Pacific Northwest and the largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon. Situated at the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers, Portland is the county seat of Multnomah County, the most populous co ...

. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

in 1989.

Career

In the mid-1990s, Sten was a founding member of X-PAC, a group of politically-minded young citizens, and has participated heavily in the Oregon Bus Project. Sten was first elected to Position 2 on the Portland City Commission in 1996, defeating Chuck Duffy. He ran successful campaigns for re-election in 1998, 2002, and 2006. As a Commissioner, Sten was an early supporter of Portland's publicly financed elections system. In 2005, he was named as one of Oregon's 15 most influential people. He resigned from his position April 4, 2008, and was succeeded by attorney

Nick Fish Nicholas Stuyvesant Fish (September 30, 1958 – January 2, 2020) was an American politician and lawyer who served as a Commissioner of Portland, Oregon from 2008 to 2020. A Democrat, Fish worked with Portland Parks & Recreation, the Portland Ho ...

. After leaving office, Sten relocated to

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...

. In 2019, it was announced that Sten had joined Strategies 360, a political consulting and lobbying firm, as an advisor.

References

Living people 1967 births Stanford University alumni Portland City Council members (Oregon) Oregon Democrats Politicians from New Haven, Connecticut {{Oregon-politician-stub