Michael Knight – Owner

Owner Michael Knight

Portland Preparedness Center owner Michael Knight fell in love with America (an American woman actually) and moved from New Zealand to the United States 20 years ago.

Prior to that he was a journalist (among other things) and covered numerous deadly storms and disasters, including shipwrecks and earthquakes.

Personal survival experience (“for which I was not prepared at all”) includes hypothermia when caught in a blizzard on a volcano, five days without food when trapped between flooded rivers on a backpacking/hunting trip, aerial relief flights to people marooned for 10 days by a cyclone in Western Australia, dehydration and heat exhaustion in 126F temperatures while covering the aftermath of that storm, and making do on a shoestring during periods of unemployment.

Self-reliance and self-sufficiency is a Knight family tradition. Michael’s parents and grandparents believed in, and did their best to grow enough food in the summer to see themselves through the winter. Hunting was therefore a traditional way of putting meat on the table, and canning was an essential skill.

Since moving to the US Michael has homesteaded a five-acre plat of land, built a house from downed trees using an Alaska chainsaw mill, worked in construction (pole barns), on a sawmill for some years, and operated a wide variety of heavy equipment – as well as using past skills as a writer and cameraman to make a documentary (“Contact Has Begun”) about James Gilliland of Trout Lake and his unusual UFO experiences.

For some years Michael has written newsletters and ebooks dealing with earth changes and the economy, as well as a practical jointly-authored book with his wife Judith titled “Easy Home Canning.”

“When it comes to earth changes, and because we take what our scientists say quite seriously, we decided years ago that we should get set up as best we can to weather whatever comes our way. We’ve already experienced power outages because of snowstorms where we live – and chances are that solar storms and earthquakes aren’t too far in the future either.”

An unexpected inheritance enabled Michael to start The Portland Preparedness Center in late 2010.

Portland was chosen because there are close to two million people in the vicinity – some of whom are well aware of the need to prepare in advance “just in case” they find themselves in an emergency situation, such as the overdue earthquake that Oregon scientists believe could occur at any time.

“There are many potential causes of an emergency,” Michael says, “ but if you are well prepared and self-sufficient before it happens, you are your own solution, rather than being part of the problem and the inevitable difficulties that will follow.”

Joshua Patterson – Operations Manager

Joshua Patterson wears many hats at the Portland Preparedness Center, from developing our Website & Point of Sale System to Managing Store Operations and being right hand to Michael Knight, Joshua has been enthusiastically adding his talents and experiences to the Portland Preparaness Center while also operating his own small business Montavilla Computer Repair & Website Services out of our office as well.

“Growing up in Oregon, the act of being “ready” for the “big one” I think was always part of my parent’s family preparedness plan. In 1989 The Loma Prieta earthquake, hit San Francisco. I was 9 at the time and lived in Oregon City. My bedroom was an addon that was a build off of the 2nd story deck that rested on stilts. After the quake the “urgency” of getting prepared hit my family like a freight train, as we moved from the house where my bedroom was on stilts. (In fact I think I was never allowed to sleep in it again.)

Thanks to my parents and the boy scouts I developed a sense of preparedness as part of my daily life, and thanks to my grandfather I have always been ready willing and able to help those in need. Be it stopping at a traffic accident or teaching others how to prepare, “being” prepared has been an active part of my mindset for many years.  In addition to the Pacific Northwest and it’s inevitable earthquakes, I have lived in Florida, where you learn to be prepared for hurricane winds, floods and powerful lightning; and in the Midwest where you learn to prepare for long heavy snow, and a variety of other life’s adventures have given me the opportunity to learn to prepare for just about anything.

I have always been a self-educator; when something sparks interest I do my best to understand it as completely as possible.  I have almost always been self-employed in one way or another and have also at times worked for others in Private Investigations, Real Estate Law, Information Technology and was even an Oregon city lifeguard going WAY back. I have been re-settled in Portland for the past six years, and in 2008 I took part in the NET training as a add on to life experience that includes a variety of things from wilderness survival skills to tactical firearms techniques. I live and work in Montavilla, where I assist as co-block captain with our neighborhood watch, Team lead for FMA 19 (Montavilla) and help out my common man when I can. The real educators in my life are my 3 kids and my wife Molli who operates a family food buying club in our neighborhood.

Some Other websites I have created:

My Personal Preparedness Blog & Newsfeed LearnHowToBePrepared.com

Montavilla Computer Repair

Northwest Website Hosting

YardSharing.org

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