Samantha Bayer is General Counsel of Oregon Property Owners Association. Prior to joining OPOA Sam served as the Housing Policy Director for the Oregon Home Builders Association where she worked closely with OPOA on land use and housing regulation in Salem. Before Homebuilders, Sam served as Policy Counsel for the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation, where she worked on rural lands policy, wildfire mitigation, and other issues impacting Oregon’s farm and ranch families.
Sam is passionate about the transformative power of economic development on peoples’ lives, particularly in rural communities. She believes that as our communities grow and prosper, so comes more opportunity for housing, work, education, diversity, and essential services. With more opportunity comes to ability to break generational cycles of poverty and inequity. Sam believes that the freedom and ability to own, use, cultivate, and sell your own property is an opportunity that should be afforded to all, and comes with it essential rights worth protecting.
Sam received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Texas Christian University (TCU) and her Juris Doctorate from the Northwestern School of Law at Lewis and Clark College. Sam is a proud graduate of the Western Resources Legal Center (WRLC), the nation’s only hands-on legal training program specializing in legal education advocacy on behalf of natural resource users located throughout the United States. Sam lives in Jackson County with her husband, son, and cats, and spends her free time helping her family with their vineyard and winery.