Iowan guides first lady’s UNI speech
(MCT) — Northeast Iowa native Tyler Lechtenberg says his job as a speechwriter for the Obama White House can be a surreal existence.
He often works one-on-one with first lady Michelle Obama. He sometimes passes the White House Rose Garden on his way to and from meetings. And every once in a while, he sees Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the hallway.
“Those are the moments that I always try to relish,” he said. “Yes it is a job, but it’s a really in-
credible experience.”
Lechtenberg, who grew up on a farm near Strawberry Point, can add another “holy cow” moment to his list: He compiled the remarks the first lady will give at University of Northern Iowa commencement Saturday.
This particular task “definitely felt a little bit different,” Lechtenberg, 29, said Thursday.
“I definitely identified with this speech in a lot of ways. I identified still with being a kid who grows up in Iowa who goes to a public university there who has their whole life in front of them,” he said. “So it was really special to me to work on this speech. It’s been a lot of fun, as well, to also see Iowa through Mrs. Obama’s eyes.”
Lechtenberg took the lead on composing the remarks Obama will give Saturday, but he said the first lady likes to beinvolved in planning her speeches. In this case, she sat down with Lechtenberg and a few other speechwriters and talked about what she wanted to say to the UNI crowd. There is a lot of back-and-forth during the drafting and editing process, Lechtenberg said.
“It’s a pretty big collaboration, but at the end of the day this is Mrs. Obama’s speech,” he said. “She’s really hands-on. She’s really great to work with. She always has excellent comments.”
As of Thursday afternoon, they were putting the finishing touches on the UNI speech, but Lechtenberg declined to give a preview of the first lady’s words.
“It’s a speech from her heart,” he said.
Among the thousands in the UNI commencement crowd will be Lechtenberg’s parents, Deb and Jim, and his brother and sister and niece and nephew.
“The whole family is coming,” he said. “Dad’s going to take a couple hours off from the planter to come in.”
A Starmont HighSchool graduate, Lechtenberg studied journalism at the University of Iowa, graduating in December 2003. He worked for a few years a sports writer as The Gazette before jumping into non-profit work, with the 10,000 Hours service organization at the UI.
After that, Lechtenberg worked for the Obama campaign in Iowa and across the country, both in the lead-up to the Iowa caucuses and before the 2008 presidential election.
That eventually led to ajob in January 2009 as director of correspondence for Michelle Obama. Last fall, Lechtenberg joined the speech writing pool at the Obama White House.
He does some work for President Obama mostly research for other speechwriters or writing smaller sets of remarks — but the majority of his speech writing duties are for the first lady.
“She’s somebody you really want to work hard for and you want to do your best for,” Lechtenberg said.
