Alumni Spotlight: Lobbyist Derek Stevens

Millikin often produces brilliant alumni who are incredibly successful within their fields. I had the opportunity to talk to Derek Stevens, who graduated from Millikin in 2003 and quickly launched into a thriving career. Now he is currently working as a lobbyist for the Illinois Education Association, Stevens represents 135,000 educators and education support staff; he lobbied the Illinois General Assembly on their behalf, taking positions on state legislation and pushing specific legislation. While he attributes the skills he gained for his career to his time at Millikin, he actually did not go into a career related to his major. Stevens says, “I think you don’t have to limit your job search to your major. I think employees are looking for job skills, not necessarily [specific] degrees.”

During his time at Millikin, Stevens studied Elementary Education and was a member of the Beta Chapter of Tau Kappa Epsilon. I was curious what was memorable about his time at Millikin and what he took away from his time in school. While Stevens ended up in politics rather than education, he says many of the skills were transferable. “Most importantly, Millikin taught me the work ethic I needed to be successful in the workplace,” Stevens says. “Because [in] the Senate, [there are] long nights and long days, and you’re working weekends, and you know that’s the same thing with college. You're up late studying for tests. Maybe you’re working, or you have a test, and you’ve only gotten four hours of sleep. That was a lot of my early days in the Senate—late nights and quick turnaround times—which I think college prepared me for.”

After graduating, Stevens participated in the Illinois Legislative Staff Intern Program at University of Illinois Springfield, a legislative internship with the Illinois Senate democrats. He spent a year on their staff and was able to take a role with responsibilities similar to that of a Senate staffer. 

After the internship, Stevens was offered a job with the Illinois Senate and worked there for 15 years. During this time, he staffed different committees, namely the Transportation Committee and the Labor Committee, as well as taking on some budgetary work. Stevens says, “Basically, what we would do is we’d analyze legislation that came before those committees…We’d analyze pieces of legislation, and then when they went to the floor, we’d help the sponsor answer any of the questions that were brought up on the floor of the IL Senate.”

After leaving the Senate in 2019, Stevens worked as a legislative liaison for the Illinois Department of Transportation. After a year, he left to work as a lobbyist for the Illinois Downstate Operating Engineers before taking his current position as a lobbyist for the Illinois  Education Association.

I was so impressed with the work that Steven’s put into an impressive career path, and I wanted to take the opportunity to ask him if he had any advice for students like myself. Stevens says: “I think when I got out of college, I was automatically thinking I needed to make something similar to what my parents were making. A piece of advice I would like to give to undergrads is don’t write off a job because it isn’t your ideal salary… The job skills alone will help you in your next opportunity.” What I took from our interview was that we can benefit from taking a chance on small stepping stones that ultimately lead to greater possibilities, even if it is not the path we expected to take. 

Stevens is just one example of an alumnus doing incredible things after graduating from Millikin. We are grateful to be able to spotlight his success!