Miguel Mayoral slides a brown leather boot into a waist-high metal clamp, lifting the lever to bite down on the thick leather boot upper and midsole. Miguel knows the tool well. In fact, he designed it.

More than 20 years ago, he got frustrated with the small clamps available to bootmakers at Danner’s factory in Northeast Portland. So he built his own, which is now part of the tools every Danner bootmaker can use. That’s just a tiny example of Miguel’s legacy and impact at the factory—in an era when most people have to switch jobs every few years, Miguel has worked at Danner for since 1978.

As a kid growing up in a large family in Guadalajara, Mexico, Miguel had to leave school and start working odd jobs for a bodega when he was 12. “I worked barefoot, because I had no shoes,” he says. “Now I have more shoes than I can use.”

At age 71, Miguel’s broad, friendly smile and down-to-earth wisdom makes him a bit of a celebrity in the factory. For nearly five decades, he’s shaped leather, stitched seams, and trained an uncountable number of other workers. Miguel is past retirement age, but he doesn’t want to stop making boots. “I'm a very realistic person,” he says. “What I like about making boots is that I can see the product. I feel proud. It's something that I did with my hands.”

These days, Miguel arrives at the factory before sunrise, clocking in at 6am to work in a small shop within the factory called The Nest, where the team experiments with building new styles and innovating on classic older designs. “We are the first ones that try things out and see if they can be used or not.” Miguel’s workbench is lined with simple, well-worn tools labeled in Sharpie with his name. Around the bench are well-organized supplies: a wall of colorful shoelaces, stacks of carefully folded leather, and a rack of boots that are works-in-progress. While experimenting is interesting, Miguel’s favorite part of the job is the time he spends in the repair shop, fixing boots that people mail in to be repaired. He loves seeing how people have actually worn the boots, solving any problems they have, and sending them out again so the shoes can get back to work.

Miguel grew up with seven siblings in Guadalajara. His dad was a taxi driver and while the family didn’t have much money, they had a lot of love. “Love, that's something you cannot buy,” says Miguel. In 1975, he came to the United States in search of more opportunities and started off doing agricultural work in California. It was grueling work, arriving at orchards before dawn to pick fruit and prune trees, the morning dew frozen on the branches. So when he heard that a local shoe company in Santa Rosa was hiring, he jumped at the chance to work indoors. He got the gig and trained as a bootmaker for two years, learning how to run every machine in a large shop that was turning out thousands of pairs of boots a day. But the work didn’t last long. In the late 1970s, more and more companies started moving their manufacturing abroad, using cheaper material and labor and importing the final product. The company Miguel was working for shut down its Santa Rosa warehouse. Luckily, before his last day loomed, a friendly boss (“a real gentleman,” as Miguel says) helped him apply for a job at Danner. Miguel had never been to Oregon, but took a leap of faith and headed north with just a phone number in his pocket and the promise of work. He arrived in the middle of a winter rainstorm in 1978 and has worked for Danner ever since.

“A few weeks later, I was going to be let go because there was nothing else to do. I’m thankful about Danner hiring me because that was an opportunity for me to succeed in the United States,” says Miguel. “One of the things that I tell people about my life is I learned to live very thankful, even for the smallest things, because that brings peace within me. So, I'm thankful because I have a lot. I'm not rich, but I have a lot.” When he first started, Miguel remembers that the Portland Danner factory was only making about 55 pairs of boots a day.  Now the factory employs 96 people and turns out 800-1000 pairs of boots a day. Over the years, as the company has grown, Miguel’s work has stayed steady: Making each pair of boots requires about 90-minutes of labor. For nearly five decades, the job has allowed him to support his wife and kids—and to make sure none of them ever have to work barefoot.

While no one is exactly sure, it’s likely that Miguel has worked at Danner longer than anyone else. In the factory break room, there are photos of long-time employees who have retired. Miguel notes with a smile that he started before any of them. But he’s not eager to hang up his own portrait and say goodbye. He loves coming into work, especially in the early mornings when it makes him happy to see his coworkers talking and laughing as they drink their morning coffee before the shift starts.

“I think that my creator gave me what I have: health, drive, motivation. That’s not for me to waste just because society says that I have to retire at a certain age. He will let me know when I'm ready to retire.” Until then, Miguel is determined to keep making boots and testing new ideas every day. “I work on whatever project is given to me to do. I don't play around and cut corners. I know the smallest worker, the one that does insignificant jobs, can be the difference.”