Jake Hamlin

Regional, State & Local Government Affairs

Jake serves clients’ legislative, regulatory and economic development interests through personalized, relationship-driven and pragmatic strategies. He has built strong relationships with state and federal government leaders, legislators, officials, and at all levels of public, private and nonprofit organizations.

He builds coalitions to solve public policy, infrastructure and business continuity issues, including before legislative bodies and regulatory agencies. Jake has more than 15 years’ experience influencing state trade association public policy committees, including from agriculture, energy, fuels, tax and transportation, and has led teams in the management of state lobbying contracts, national and state trade associations, annual lobbying plans, and capital project incentives.

Representative Experience

• Annually implemented a 12-state government affairs program to mitigate policy and regulatory risk for an agribusiness and its functional partners.
• Facilitate permit approvals for processing facilities, infrastructure grant applications and capital project siting analysis.
• Draft comment letters for proposed low-carbon fuel standard and carbon capture and sequestration regulations.
• Facilitated a $25 million incentive package for a proposed $700 million Wisconsin soybean processing facility.
• Led the legislative position development for a 15-person agriculture, energy and functional liquid fuels team over 18 months to develop the corporate policy position on renewable and low-carbon fuels for external audiences.

Prior Experience

For 11 years, Jake was director of state government affairs for CHS — a global agribusiness owned by farmers, ranchers and cooperatives across the United States. Previously, he was director of state government affairs for Cargill.

Personal Interests

In his free time, Jake enjoys outdoor activities with his family in every season, including biking, camping, hiking, landscaping, skating and cross-country skiing. The 1980 National Balloon Classic ignited 30 years of crewing and piloting hot air balloons culminating in a commercial hot air balloon license.