After a tour of duty in Vietnam, 15 years in the Iowa legislature, a long career with Wilson Foods in Cedar Rapids and four years with the U.S. Department of Labor, Richard Running was appointed director of Iowa Workforce Development in 1999. Since then he has overseen a period of job growth followed by a recession. He struggles in finding a balance between the needs of workers and employers, but said he finds the most joy in assisting the labor force, particularly through training and skill development. Occasionally, he finds his job influenced by legislation that he wrote many years ago during his time in office.

Are you a native Iowan?

I was born in North Dakota. My mother was an actual Rosie the Riveter in World War II in California where she met my father, who was in the army; he went overseas, and she went back to North Dakota, and that’s where I was born. I lived there less than a year and moved back home to Wisconsin where my father was a dairy farmer. I went to college at Wisconsin and then got an all-expense-paid trip over to Vietnam.

Why did you enlist to serve in the Vietnam War?

The future indicated I would pass a draft physical. Rather than serve in the Army, I thought I might enjoy the Navy, so that was my service of choice. We basically never saw the people we were shooting at.

And now you have a son, Chad, who is serving in the armed forces?

Yes, and he’s home this week in fact. He is in the United States Army serving in the green zone in Baghdad. He’s been there since May of last year and had planned on getting back here in January, but that got extended, so along with the extension they gave him a two-week leave. We were a little concerned about his travel home, but now that he’s here we’re just ecstatic that he’s able to spend some time with us.

When you were younger did you ever aspire to political office?

No, it was the furthest thing from my mind actually. When I was younger I thought that I might end up doing what my father had done – working in a factory or on a farm. But I thought I would probably be the first to go on to college and always planned on that, initially thinking engineering would be the appropriate area for me, but after finding out about urban planning things I was intrigued by that. The politics just came as an aside.

You served in the Iowa legislature for 15 years. How did you develop an interest in politics?

I’m one of the people who were impressed with John F. Kennedy’s term and how the nation was truly shocked by his assassination. I also got involved working in local campaigns, and in 1978 Congressman Michael Blouin (now director of the Iowa Department of Economic Development) asked me if I would consider working for him in his regional district office. I did that for close to a year and then was encouraged by neighbors and friends and relatives and many of the political people in the Cedar Rapids area to run for the Iowa Legislature. After a lengthy conversation, my wife discovered that people who run for the first time usually don’t win. I fooled her and won for the first time, one of the few Democrats to get elected in the Reagan landslide.

How would you define your term in office?

I wasn’t a flamboyant legislator, a real newsworthy legislator. I was like I was in the factories and like I am in this job – a blue-collar legislator and a blue-collar director. I know what my job is, how my constituents wanted it done from 1980 to 1995 and how the governor wants it done now.

Had you ever aspired to run for a higher office?

No. I had been asked several times to consider running for Congress and other offices, but I, believe it or not, get a lot of job satisfaction out of helping people that don’t have all the skills and characteristics and training necessary to find jobs. The most humbling thing to ever occur to me was when President Clinton came to Iowa in April of 1995 and during his speech he asked me to stand up and be recognized as his newest appointment to the U.S. Department of Labor as the regional representative for the secretary of labor. I was invited by Gov. Tom Vilsack in 1999 to serve as the director of Iowa Workforce Development.

When the working day is done, how do you unwind?

The workers compensation commissioner, Mike Trier, and I are usually the last ones to leave, and sometimes that’s 7 or 8 o’clock at night. But I go home and spend time with my wife and hopefully my three grandkids. It’s pretty wonderful to spoil them as retaliation for any misbehaviors I can remember from my kids. And then I try to engage in some physical activity. I had the opportunity to do RAGBRAI three of the last four years, and look forward to getting back on the trail in that regard.

Do you feel like you’re an Iowan now?

After I started buying season tickets to the Hawkeyes I became an Iowa boy. I lived through some great games down there and have been pretty much following them – with somewhat mixed loyalties when they play the Wisconsin Badgers, but still wearing gold and black.