Nathanael Secor was born in northern Illinois in 1982 to Cecelia and David Secor. Growing up in that endless strip Illinoisans call “Chicagoland”, Nathanael spent his childhood observing nature, creating imaginary worlds, and vegging out to Nickelodeon’s “Salute Your Shorts”. He became active in scouting and before rejecting hierarchy and patriotic boy-cults he attained the rank of Eagle Scout. It was through Boy Scouts and family vacations to the shores of Lake Superior that he fell in love with the Northwoods, a love that continues to this day.

In the year 2000, upon graduating from hell, Nathanael enrolled in the very over-priced yet quaintly awesome Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin. Majoring in Fine Arts and Environmental Studies, Nathanael honed his craft as a ceramics artist and explored his passion for woody herbaceous flora of the area, becoming simultaneously an art nerd and a plant geek.  As part of student activist groups, Nathanael organized against Coca-Cola and its role as a corporate partner on campus and against the School of the Americas (SOA). His time in Ashland also gave him a greater appreciation for the rural north, and he caught the DIY fever which has always plagued the isolated timber communities of northern Wisconsin. Upon graduating from Northland with a BA, Nathanael stuck around Ashland for another year working on the nearby Bad River Anishanabe Reservation on a diabetes prevention/traditional gardening project before moving on to Minneapolis.

Nathanael moved to the Twin Cities in 2006 to be closer to family and an anarchist and DIY community, and despite its density found Minneapolis to be surprisingly tolerable. At this point, Nathanael became involved in the local Food Not Bombs which combined his interests in cooking and building community. He also began working as a naturalist teaching children about nature and later transitioned to teaching preschool. Nathanael was around for the early incarnations of the RNC Welcoming Committee and was involved in this logistical group up until the convention. Post-RNC, Nathanael can be found exploring the Mississippi river bottom for wild grapes, wiping snotty noses in the preschool, or racing through Minneapolis traffic on his raleigh.