Skip to main contentLoren Parks, a reclusive medical devices tycoon who poured money into Republican campaigns and ballot measures, has died at 97.
In the 1990s and the first decade of this century, Parks gave generously to to Republican candidates and ballot measures. Even after relocating to Nevada in 2002, he frequently bankrolled campaigns and concepts floated by now state Rep. Kevin Mannix (R-Salem) and Bill Sizemore, then a prolific author of ballot measures targeting taxes and public employees.
His death was first reported by The Oregonian.
Although Democrats dominate Oregon politics today, the landscape looked different during much of the period that Parks bankrolled GOP causes. Republicans controlled the Oregon House from 1991 through 2005 and the Senate from 1995 through 2001. They held at least one U.S. Senate seat until 2009.
When WW profiled the normally reticent Parks in 2006, he had by that time given more than $7 million in campaign contributions. In 1994, he gave $270,000 to help pass Measure 11, which instituted mandatory minimum sentences for violent crimes.
From 2007 to 2015, the year he stopped giving, filings with the state show he gave another $3.3 million. Almost all of his money went to GOP candidates and causes. He also supported medical nonprofits and funded passage of Oregon’s pioneering Death with Dignity Act. A keen sport fisherman, Parks gave generously to support a coastal fish hatchery and to preserve salmon habitat.
Parks earned his fortune from medical devices, including the “penile plethysmograph,” which WW described is used to “measure blood engorgement in sexual organs and is used to treat sexual dysfunction in both men and women, as well as measure arousal responses in sex offenders.”
He considered himself an expert in sexual matters, but a relationship with one of his employees landed him in court in 2002.
Related: “Dirty Old [Money] Man”
Parks’ spending over the years prompted a strong response from Oregon’s public employee unions, which increased their focus on voter registration and turnout efforts to counter the slew of ballot measures that Parks, Sizemore and others backed.
In 2014, The Oregonian reported two Oregon teachers’ unions settled a lawsuit they’d filed against Sizemore alleging he’d improperly funneled money from a Parks foundation to fund his activities. The unions received nearly $600,000.
The following year, U.S. Tax Court found that Parks had earlier improperly spent money from one of his foundations on political activities. He gave his last contribution in Oregon (to the Oregon Capitol Watch political action committee) in June 2015.
Nike co-founder Phil Knight has subsequently eclipsed Parks as Oregon’s largest individual donor. State filings show Knight has contributed just over $14 million in Oregon races since 2007.
Parks died Oct. 13, according to an obituary. He is survived by his children, Gary Parks, Raymond Parks and Nancy Sopp; four grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.