As the application deadline approaches for The Heritage Foundation’s Spring 2018 Young Leaders Program internships, former intern Chris Reid reflected on his time at Heritage and the impact it has had on his career.

“Heritage showed me how to navigate policy and politics, which is valuable to everything I do now,” said Reid. “I’ve had incredible opportunities I would have never thought possible.”

Reid was a domestic-policy intern in the fall of 2006. He went on to graduate from Samford University, a private Christian school in Homewood, Ala., and Cumberland Law School in Birmingham, Ala.

Since his Heritage internship, he has worked for Republican Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri when Blunt was still in the House and for then-Alabama Gov. Bob Riley. 

Reid is now a general practice attorney at his own law firm in Birmingham.

“Heritage set up everything. They gave me a lot of good background to understand not just the policy, but the mechanics of how politics works,” Reid said.

Reid has even taken on teaching students about policy and law through his firm’s own internship program, drawing largely from the lessons he learned in the Young Leaders Program.

“I try to do my program different, but some of the books I use in my own program were given to me at Heritage, like [Ayn Rand’s] ‘Atlas Shrugged.”’

Reid reaches conservatives throughout the state of Alabama as a co-host of a radio show on Yellowhammer News Radio and as a guest commentator on local TV stations. He also spends his time writing commentaries that have been featured in The Hill and The Washington Examiner.

Reid said he uses Heritage research in his commentaries because he respects the foundation’s integrity and commitment to seeking the truth.

Heritage’s Young Leaders Program seeks to develop the next generations of right-thinking leaders like Reid by offering young conservatives Washington’s best internship program.

Applications are open for spring semester internships until Sept. 24. Learn more about the Young Leaders Program here.