Charlie Kirk’s killing was described by the Utah governor as a “political assassination,” but a friend who worked with the political commentator at his conservative nonprofit Turning Point USA was most concerned about Kirk’s family.

Matt Lamb, a former Turning Point USA official who worked with the student organization during its early years from 2013 to 2017, spoke to PEOPLE about his reaction to Kirk’s fatal shooting at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, on Wednesday, Sept. 10.

“I certainly feel for his family,” Lamb, 31, tells PEOPLE. “I’m praying for them. … He loved his wife and loved his kids. You could just tell about the way he talked about them.”

Kirk, 31, married Erika Kirk in 2021 after the couple first began dating three years earlier. The couple shared two children, a daughter born in August 2022 and a son born in May 2024.

“I hope that his organization lives on,” says Lamb, who first joined Turning Point USA organization as a volunteer in 2013 before later becoming a full-time staffer in 2015. “But, I mean, certainly he has a more important legacy than Turning Point in his wife and his two kids. His legacy will live on through that.”

Lamb says he and the Turning Point USA co-founder first met that year when they were both students themselves. Lamb went on to become one of roughly “30 or so” of the organization’s first employees, traveling to campuses across the country to rally students around conservative, right-wing political issues.

Kirk later became a pivotal confidant of Trump, 79, during his three presidential campaigns.

“He was a gifted political activist,” Lamb says.

“Even in this event [where he was shot], he was very dedicated to civil dialogue with people he disagreed with,” Lamb says. Kirk at times faced some of those dialogues head on, including earlier this year when he appeared on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast where the two political figures with opposing views debated for more than an hour. Newsom, a Democrat, called Kirk’s killing “disgusting, vile, and reprehensible,” as the shooting drew bipartisan backlash.

The last time Lamb and Kirk spoke was roughly three years ago, the former Turning Point official tells PEOPLE. Lamb attended a Turning Point event at Purdue University earlier this year but says he arrived too late to meet up with Kirk as he’d hoped. “I regret not getting there earlier,” he says now.

At the event, Lamb noted there was plenty of security surrounding Kirk as well as barricades between him and the event’s attendees.

Authorities have said a person of interest in the shooting is in custody. That person’s name has not been publicly released.

Now, Lamb is thinking back to the time he worked with Kirk and could tell he was positioning himself to become a major political player.

“You could tell he was just someone who was well spoken, and you wanted him in charge of whatever you wanted to get done,” Lamb said. “He had that sense that if you gave it to him, he would get it done. And you know, even back then, [Turning Point] hadn’t raised nearly the amount of money or had nearly the amount of staff they had now, but he was just very confident in what he was trying to do.”