Amy Campbell enjoyed her job with State Public Policy Group. She joined the Des Moines-based consulting and association management firm as special projects director in 1991 and worked her way up to vice president of government relations. Eventually, she was lobbying for 23 clients and began to feel it was too much.

“I wanted to be able to focus more,” she said. “I wanted to have more control over my time.”

At the end of June, she left the company. In September, she got back to work, taking on clients as a consultant. As Campbell begins her 11th legislative session lobbying in Iowa, she is forming a new business, Lobbying and Government Relations Services. She has 10 clients, and says it’s the perfect amount for now.

Campbell, 37, grew up in Urbandale, and in 1988 she graduated from Central College in Pella with a bachelor’s degree in political science. Her first job was with the Democratic Party as a field staffer in Cedar Rapids. At the end of that year, she moved to Seattle, where she worked various jobs, including bartending.

In 1990, she returned to Iowa intending to work for the Democratic Party in that year’s legislative races. She joined the caucus staff instead, working on health and local government issues. At the time, she thought her next step would be to join a presidential campaign. Her plans changed, however, when she was offered a job with State Public Policy Group and fell in love with someone here in town.

Campbell says she has been lucky in her new business venture, because she can choose which causes to work for, and several of her current clients asked her to represent them. She works primarily with human services, health and economic development groups. Meeting with legislators is not her favorite part of the job. She prefers advocacy training, in which she teaches the leaders of an organization how to develop a message and effectively communicate it to their legislators and the media.

“I know how to write an amendment and how to get a bill passed,” she said. “But [organizations’ leaders] are the ones legislators need to hear from. They’re the experts.”