Born and raised in Medford, Nathan is the proud son of an immigrant from El Salvador. During his senior year of high school in 2014, he volunteered with the campaign of his local state senator Dr. Alan Bates. Senator Bates offered Nathan an internship in his capitol office, which brought Nathan to Salem in 2015 after graduating from North Medford High School. He worked for Senator Bates until his passing, and Nathan has continued to work in the legislature since then.

When Nathan came to Salem, he enrolled at Chemeketa Community College and competed with the mock trial team there. For his sophomore year, he dual-enrolled at Chemeketa and Western Oregon University while continuing to live in South Salem. At WOU, he served as the Director of Equity and Director of State and Federal Affairs for the student government before being elected president of the student senate.

When his father suddenly passed away during his junior year at WOU, Nathan took a month off from school to handle family affairs in Medford. Still, he graduated from WOU as projected in 2019 with dual degrees in philosophy and psychology as a member of both programs’ honors societies, becoming the first in his family to graduate from college. After taking two years off to work, he returned to school and is completing his education as a part-time Juris Doctor candidate at Lewis & Clark Law School, concentrating on Indian Law and Civil Rights Law, and served as Secretary of the school’s Student Bar Association.

Throughout college, Nathan worked as many as three jobs at a time to support himself, including continuing to work in the Oregon State Senate since 2016. After graduation, Nathan moved back to Medford with a new job as the in-district aide for Senator Jeff Golden. In December 2019, he accepted a position as Senator Lew Frederick’s Chief of Staff, returned to Salem, and continues to serve in that role.

Nathan was one of the original organizers of the state legislative staffers’ union, making Oregon’s legislative staff the first in the nation to unionize. In 2020, Nathan became Oregon’s youngest-ever presidential elector at the age of 23. He currently serves as the Board Secretary of the Morningside Neighborhood Association, where he advocates for smart and considerate development, safer roads, maintaining parks, and building community.

As a city councilor, Nathan’s primary focus will be on reframing how the council works, underscoring the need for collaboration. Whether it’s addressing homelessness, bolstering behavioral health services, keeping the library open, supporting public safety, maintaining parks, or fixing roads, he believes that we can’t do this work alone. We need to be intentionally working together to keep making Salem a great place to live. Nathan will bring his years of experience and relationships in state and local politics to serve the people of Ward 3 and keep our city moving forward.

Nathan lives in the Cambridge area with his two bunny rabbits. He is a dedicated watch collector and plays the saxophone. Nathan loves to take road trips all over Oregon and listen to horror podcasts on the drive, and he is also a horror movie aficionado.