A Letter From Your Portland Local President

We’re definitely deep in the dog days of summer, aren’t we? As we’ve been sweating through the heat wave our region has been dealing with, I’ve been reflecting on the ways we come together to get through tough times.

Something that really brought this home to me was when I got to see some board members and local performers in person — face to real face — when we brought our members and independent filmmakers together at Portland’s 48 Hour Film Project. The SAG-AFTRA Portland Local is proud to be a sponsor of the festival’s return this year, and to give these filmmakers a chance to work with our members through the special 48 Hour Film Project Waiver. I and several members of your local board had a wonderful (if sweltering) time talking to teams at the festival kickoff on July 29, and we’re looking forward to seeing some of our members at the awards ceremony. Keep an eye on the Portland 48 Hour Film Festival website at 48hourfilm.com/en/portland-or for more information on when that ceremony will take place.

Several of our local performers and I also participated in a special table read at the Willamette Writers conference on Aug. 5–7. This event, as well as a local short I had the honor of being in a few weeks ago, has reminded me of the incredible talent that performers in our local bring to every project.

One more example of how we come together might seem a little odd: the recent announcement regarding our new executive director, Davis Powell. You should have already received word that Davis has been hired as the new Seattle Local Executive Director (as most of you already know, staff in the Seattle office — including the executive director — serve Portland members as well). I am very excited about Davis’ hiring. Since joining our Pacific Northwest staff last year, Davis has been a fierce advocate for members’ interests, and I know he will continue his hard work on our behalf as ED. 

Davis’ hiring for this position has been a long time coming, and is the result of the Portland and Seattle Local boards coming together to improve things for both our regions. Our boards seated members of a Search Committee for this position back in 2020, after the departure of our last executive director, and empowered them to find the best candidate to work with our locals.

That search was put on hold during the pandemic, so San Francisco-Northern California Local Executive Director Sean Taylor stepped into the breach to assist your local board (and the Seattle Board) in steering our way through that difficult period. Sean, Dee Dee Escobedo and the rest of his team did an amazing job of keeping things running in our locals, and I can’t thank them enough for their service and dedication to our members. 

With that said, I’m very happy that our region is going to be served by a dedicated executive director — and that we can take some of the work off of Sean’s already overloaded plate! 

All this has inspired me to continue finding ways to show the world what we have here, as well as to create more opportunities for us to come together and work on our craft.  As I work on a strategy and vision to make these ideas come to fruition, please feel free to reach out to me if you have ideas or want to help — after all, no one can move mountains alone; we have to come together to make things happen.

Michelle Damis
Portland Local President