A few years back, Orlando Owens went to Sheboygan on behalf of his boss, Sen. Ron Johnson. He drove up to meet with a constituent who had an idea for a jobs program for area youth. It might have been a fine program, but Orlando was there to listen and nothing more. There would be no further commitment from the senator. As Orlando listened, though, he learned about factory jobs just beyond the Milwaukee area, jobs that grown men on the city’s north side needed badly. So he stretched what should have been a one-time sit down into a mini investigation, involving other community organizers and area ministers and reinventing the idea. The result was The Joseph Project, which offers a weeklong job training boot camp and then connects men to jobs, sometimes via church vans that are otherwise idle during the week. With a broader vision to combat crime, drugs, violence and hopelessness, the faith-based project has Johnson’s endorsement and has gained national attention for its success. Orlando is also a proud Republican and a black man living in Milwaukee. For some, that is stereotype-busting reality, and he takes delight in that. He says he is first and foremost an imperfect “child of God” and that he chose the Republican party because it’s where he can best express his faith and because of a belief in traditional marriage, he says. At the moment, Orlando is trying to oust Rep. Jason Fields, a veteran Democrat, by running for the state’s Assembly District 11.