A Republican gubernatorial candidate made a campaign stop in Jefferson on Friday.

Adam Steen previously worked for over five years as the Director of Administrative Services until eight months ago when he wanted to protect and preserve Iowa and he wanted to be the candidate to go against the presumed Democratic gubernatorial nominee, Rob Sand and he thought Sand was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Steen talked about his faith, bringing him from a lifestyle of doing things for himself to helping others as a facilitator and became a reverend with the Assembly of God Church. He also shared a personal story about one of his sons having a rare genetic disease and overcoming the likelihood of not being able to walk or talk while giving a sermon in front of a congregation, with the belief that God was helping his family. 

With his over 17 years of business background, Steen sees the governor as the CEO of Iowa and there are three things that the governor should be responsible for. The first is how to operate the state and how he was able to align 37 state departments to 16 as the Director of DAS. The second responsibility is preserving the culture of Iowa with its hard work ethic and incentivizing skilled trades for students to work in and the last responsibility is on policy. 

Steen also talked about working with bipartisan support to expand the same benefits that families of Iowa State Patrol employees get if that individual is killed on the job to all state departments. He was also not in favor of treating private and independent schools the same as public schools, but he was against the standards that public schools are having to teach. 

Other topics Steen discussed included not allowing eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines, doesn’t want Sharia Law in Iowa and wants large companies to invest in mini nuclear reactors as a way to generate revenue, due to all of the incentives those companies already get in the state. 

Steen is running against four other candidates for the Republican nomination, including Randy Feenstra, Eddie Andrews, Zach Lahn and Brad Sherman.