Malcolm Francis Marsh was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1928, and grew up in McMinnville. He served in the U.S. Army in Japan after the end of World War II. In 1953, he and Shari Long were married; they later had three children. In 1954, he earned a law degree from the University of Oregon. He practiced law in Salem and specialized in product liability cases for 33 years. In 1987, he was appointed to the U.S. District Court of Oregon, where he oversaw many cases regarding salmon fisheries, as well as cases involving the Rajneeshees. He took senior status in 1998.

Stephen Michael Bloom was born June 10, 1948 in San Francisco, California, to Dr. Allan Bloom and Natalie Claire Levee. He grew up in the San Fernando Valley, where his father was a general practice physician. Bloom graduated high school in 1966, attended Dartmouth College for two years, and in 1970 matriculated at Stanford University with a degree in English. He came of age during the Vietnam War, which shaped his social conscience. During his time at Stanford, Bloom lived with fellow students from the Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] while serving in the Navy ROTC. After two years in the Navy, Bloom began working with the Equal Educational Opportunities Commission in the California Department of Education. Preferring the work he observed lawyers doing, Bloom headed to Willamette Law School in Oregon in 1974.

Fred G. Meyer was born Frederich Wilhelm Heinrich Grübmeÿer in Bruchhagen, Niedersachsen, Germany, in 1886. In 1889, his family immigrated to the United States and settled in Brooklyn, New York. He moved West in the 1900s, starting in Alaska and eventually making his way to Portland, Oregon. In 1909, his long career in grocery retail began when he bought a coffee business in downtown Portland. In 1919, he changed his name to Fred G. Meyer. That same year, he and Eva Chatfield Chiles were married; Chiles had a son, Earle A. Chiles. In 1922, Meyer; his brother, Henry; and a third partner opened a Piggly Wiggly store in downtown Portland. In 1927, Meyer left the partnership to open his own self-service grocery store, Fred Meyer, Inc. Over the next fifty years, the business grew to 63 stores in five states. Meyer is credited with developing the concept of one-stop shopping, and served as the inspiration for Sam Walton's Walmart Stores. Meyer died in 1978.

Marty Davis (b. 1949) was the owner and publisher of Portland's LGBT newspaper, Just Out (1998-2011).