Chance encounter with Reynolds leads Jacobs to a job at the Capitol

Austin Jacobs graduated from Southern Cal High School and headed off to Simpson College as a Democrat.
“If I could have voted for (former President Barack) Obama, I would have,” Jacobs said in a recent phone interview.
Instead, he became friends with someone heavily involved in the college’s Republican organization. That led him to an event with Kim Reynolds, who was Iowa’s lieutenant governor at the time. And at that event, he started talking with Reynolds.
“She invited me to come to the Capitol and grab coffee,” Jacobs said.
He did. At the end of that 30-minute meeting, Reynolds encouraged Jacobs to apply for an internship she had coming open in her office. He got that, too, working with Reynolds, her chief of staff and her communications director from January to May 2014.
Read more in the Nov. 21 edition or click here to subscribe and access the e-edition.