Jennifer Furler
Senior Program Manager

She waited for him this night just as she had waited many other weekday evenings.  She didn’t find it unusual to make that special trip to the building where he worked.  He approached, and she leaned against the counter. She was anxious, even impatient for his attention. She looked down at the paper where she had scribbled some notes and pushed it towards him. “I would like to see these three reference books – The Pre-Peloponnesian War- Strategy of a Mute General; The Crusades –1011-1154 and 2003 - ?; and The Morning After the French Revolution.  I reserved them last Tuesday.”  The reference librarian turned away and picked up the books from the library table next to the counter and handed them to Jennifer. She walked away.

Jennifer Furler is the first to concede that history is her “guilty pleasure.”  She grew up in the northwest Iowa community of Hartley, Iowa. In college, she interned with the US Information Agency in Washington, DC and received her BA degree in history/political science from Buena Vista University in Storm Lake. Unlike many, she realized history gives perspective and can change the way one thinks about current issues.

Soon after graduating, Furler joined the Washington, DC staff of US Senator Tom Harkin and spent a considerable amount of time as his scheduler.  In time, she elected to return to Iowa.  While working for the Des Moines Public School District in board and community relations, Jennifer completed her Master of Public Administration at Drake University. In 2004, she joined SPPG.

She was immediately thrown in to the deep end, but her strength of personality and acumen for solving problems kept her head well above water.  Furler has been instrumental in a number of high profile projects as a researcher and policy driver, and continues to use her tremendous skills to lead SPPG projects today as a Senior Program Manager.

“Leading or working on projects and initiatives at SPPG allows me to be somewhat of a nerd.  I can get excited learning more about Iowa’s workforce history, taking road trips to conduct focus groups, or even plodding through heavy-duty research. It may sound a bit idealistic, but I do care, and feel I can make a difference. Whether it is foreign policy or local policy, it’s why I do what I do.”

As is the case with all at SPPG, Jennifer spends a considerable amount of time with high profile task forces, policymakers, charts, graphs, and data maps, but ultimately, though, she loves an afternoon nap on the weekend sometimes preceded with a few chapters from a good history book…perhaps on the Peloponnesian War.