Political passion drives MSU graduate through career

When Stephen Linder began college at MSU in 1972, he didn’t know what he wanted to do.

Steve Linder

He had a passion for politics, but he certainly never realized it would become a way of life for him.

“I always knew that I wanted to do something big and great and that would have an effect on a lot of people,” Linder said. “I just didn’t know what it was. I was sort of naturally driven to very large efforts and always wanted to control my own destiny.”

Now, Linder is a managing partner at the Sterling Corporation, a political consulting firm in Lansing. He’s attending the Republican National Convention this week as an alternate delegate. Linder is one of the state’s top Republican Party fundraisers.

And it was here, on the banks of the Red Cedar River, that Linder became a Republican.

While attending MSU, Linder got a job working for the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association and at the time identified as a Democrat. His boss there, a successful lobbyist, taught Linder the tricks of the trade — how to evaluate different issues and to examine the different philosophies of the political parties.

“It became very apparent to me that my affiliation with the Democratic Party had more to do with my upbringing from an immigrant family in a labor town like Flint than really my true belief system,” he said.

From that job at the Michigan Automobile Dealers Association stemmed opportunities for Linder, 54, of Okemos, to work on multiple campaigns.

After taking some time off from school to work, Linder graduated from MSU in 1980 with a degree in communication arts and sciences.

His life, since stepping foot onto campus, has been one intertwined with the Republican Party — and one that has never stopped bleeding green and white.

Political know-how

The first campaigns Linder worked on included state House of Representatives campaigns. He worked in any capacity, from putting up signs to knocking on doors.

Linder was still in school when he worked on his first campaign and would distribute information on campus about the candidate. He recruited volunteers from Okemos High School who needed campaign experience to pass their political science class.

“At the time, dorms still had some men’s and women’s sides to them,” he said, sitting on the deck of his Okemos home. “I remember I took a bunch of guys and we somehow or another got onto one of the women’s floors. We knocked on the door and the woman said come in and she was drying her hair, stark naked, and this guy just went completely nuts and ran out of there.

“The next time I asked for volunteers, hundreds of them volunteered,” Linder said, laughing hard at the collegiate memory.

From state House campaigns, he moved up the political ladder, eventually working on former Gov. William G. Milliken’s campaign. It was a move, Linder said, that tossed him into the political realm for good.

“It’s exciting, it’s fanatic, it’s quite empowering,” he said of working on campaigns. “The challenge of a campaign is to take an individual who believes that they have the kinds of values and beliefs that a majority of people in an area will allow them to represent and try and go out and market yourself and your belief systems to thousands of people.”

Now, Linder is considered one of the top fundraisers for the Michigan GOP. His former boss, Bob LaBrant, senior vice president of political affairs and general counsel at the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, said Linder has what it takes to be a political fundraiser.

“Steve has boundless energy, has a high threshold for rejection and, frankly, is just one of the best political fundraisers in the state of Michigan,” LaBrant said.

Steve Webster, MSU’s vice president for governmental affairs, said he has known Linder more than 20 years.

“As a fundraiser it requires preparation, it requires persistence and it requires the powers of persuasion,” Webster said. “And he’s superior in all three of those categories.”

As part of the first 18-year-old class that could vote, Linder said he was always driven toward politics.

“One thing I learned early on about our system of government and our democracy is it’s not a spectator sport. It doesn’t work well if people don’t participate in it,” he said. “What really drives me batty is people sitting back and whining and bitching and complaining when they could do something about it. Write letters, make phone calls, go testify at hearings, go to meetings with people, organize.”

Devotion to MSU

A season ticket holder for both football and basketball, an avid tennis supporter, Wharton Center ticket holder and a member of the Beaumont Tower Society, it’s safe to say that Linder, and his wife of 16 years, attorney Iris Linder, love MSU.

“I thought MSU was a great place, and it’s a wonderful university,” he said.

Linder said when he began at MSU, he was drawn to its size for the diversity of people and educational options.

“This is a really beautiful campus to hang out on and I met a lot of really great professors while I was here,” he said.

When he began at MSU, Linder first lived in Armstrong Hall. He had a one-week tenure in the Brody Hall kitchen, but quit because it was “absolutely horrific to work there.”

While he was living in the dorms, Linder said there was a Brody Complex snowball fight that was so out of hand police were called. His dormmates got into other mischief as well.

“We had somehow or another realized that if everyone came to their windows and yelled, that Brody echoed and you could hear it across campus,” he said. “So we organized these yelling nights, where people would yell and scream not nice things and it would resonate all over campus.”

While he likes the area, Linder said it was ultimately his work that kept him here.

“If you’re going to work in politics, you’ve got to be in the state capital or the national capital.”

He added that his degree in communication arts and sciences has worked out well, especially at the Sterling Corporation, which deals with issue management and promotes effective communication for their clients.

“It was a perfect degree for me,” he said. “I just didn’t know it at the time.”