Occupier of the Day: Michael Colvin

Name: Michael Colvin

Age: 67

Occupation: Retired Church of the Brethren pastor and grade-school teacher

Tenure at Occupy Portland: Colvin has been at Occupy Portland every day since day one. He's camped one night.

Otherwise lives in: North Portland

His favorite political thinker: Gene Sharp

His contribution to the camp: Colvin headed up the “Working Group to Establish Long-term Strategy in Oregon.” It's focused on how the Occupy movement in Oregon will develop.

“What we’ll do next is ramp it up from the cities to the states and then move on to D.C.,” he says.

His experience at Occupy Portland: “The left has always had a hard time getting itself together because it breaks up into so many smaller ideological pieces. This movement is bringing people together—widely divergent groups of people talking to one another, sharing stories and coming together. I haven’t been happier in 50 years with a political movement.”

An activist his entire life, he remembers protesting the Vietnam War in college. “Back then we were all still thinking on terms of the American Dream. Now we’re really beginning to look at a new paradigm based on the people coming together. Our culture wants us to live separately and independently with the ability to buy the same stuff in different styles.”