ISU Town Hall with Rick Stewart, Libertarian Gubernatorial Candidate

2022 ISU Lectures Campaign Town Hall Series

Rick Stewart is the Libertarian Party's candidate for Iowa Governor.

Rick is a native Iowan who attended ISU for one quarter before dropping out to take a two year trip to Europe, the Middle East and Asia.

Upon returning he went from a long haired hippy to a uniformed police officer in Maquoketa, his home town, in 30 days. Two years later he was fired for growing a beard.

While earning a degree from Kirkwood College in agricultural mechanics Rick started a company selling (legal) herbs and spices to natural food stores. Today Frontier Co-Op employs 600 people and has $200+ million in annual sales. Along the way he was Iowa's Small Businessperson of the Year, and first national runner-up. Frontier was honored by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing companies in America, and for three years was on Working Mother Magazine's list of the best companies in the country for working mothers.

Since his early retirement in 1999 Rick has hiked the Appalachian Trail, traveled to Cuba, North Korea, Myanmar, and 37 other off the beaten path countries, as a hitchhiking short haired hippy. He has climbed 87 volcanoes in Guatemala to earn money which supports a school with 175 low income students in K-6, and an orphanage for 35.

In 2012 Rick received national publicity for exposing the Commission on Presidential Debates as the most anti-democratic institution in America when he proved none of their 'National Donors' had ever given a single dollar to the organization.

Rick has previously run for US Senate, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture, and Linn County Sheriff.

He has a BA from Coe College, an MBA from the University of Chicago, 6 children and 10 grandchildren, and lives in Cedar Rapids.