Alumni

Public Service: For Alumni, It's a Calling

JIM R. KALLINGER ’83
State Representative, Florida

Working in government was foreign to Jim Kallinger, but after years of griping about ineffective government with his fellow small-business owners, he decided to get involved.

“I made a big jump from a homeowners association president to state representative,” says Kallinger, a general contractor who was elected to represent Florida’s 35th District in 2000. He was re-elected in 2002.

His experience as a legislator has changed his perspective about politics. “I was a typical cynical citizen who thought politicians didn’t know what they were doing,” he says. “[Now I realize] they are men and women who are working really hard and doing the best they can.”

An advocate for smaller government and greater personal responsibility, Kallinger adds that he has gained a deep appreciation of the political process, which annually winnows almost 2,000 initial bills to about 200 laws passed. “What you start off with is not always what you end up with, but it is reflective of the will of the people,” he says.

Kallinger credits his good work habits and his ability to look beneath the surface of an issue to the individual attention he received from Lake Forest professors such as Clayton Gray (German) and Jonathan Galloway (politics). “They trained me to appreciate that there is more than one side to every story,” he says.

"They trained me to appreciate that there is more than one side to every story," Kallinger says.