[2] As of September 2011[update], Willems serves on Iowa House committees for Education (ranking member), Labor, and Ways and Means.

Willems was a field organizer for Congressman Leonard Boswell's 1998 reelection campaign.

In 2001 he worked on the unsuccessful United States House campaigns of John Norris and Julie Thomas.

He worked one summer in the legal department of Iowa Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 before taking his current job as an attorney at Rush & Nicholson, P.L.C., practicing labor and employment law.

Nate is active in the Linn County Democratic Central Committee, the Lisbon Lincoln Highway Lions Club, the Mount Vernon Athletic Boosters, and is First Vice President of the Iowa Federation of Teachers.