Meet Shafer Consulting

Our small and nimble team is unified around a single goal – to help make our community a better place. We are transparent, hardworking, and humble because we understand that we always have more to learn. We emphasize integrity and excellence above all else. Despite our buttoned-up head shots, we’re known for our friendly approach and good-natured wit. We check our egos at the door and let our portfolio of work speak for itself. “The Shafers” are two uniquely talented partners – in business and life. And for any given project, we collaborate with seriously talented associates selected to complement our skill sets and trained to deliver our standard of excellence.

David is a principal of Shafer Consulting and specializes in strategic planning and communicating science and science-policy issues through technical analysis, education, outreach, and creative design. David excels at translating and transferring complex scientific and engineering concepts and information to diverse audiences. He facilitates creative, co-productive, and consensus-forming dialogue among stakeholders, managers, and policymakers. His skillsets include research, analysis, strategic planning, facilitation, consensus development, technical and lay scientific writing, graphic design, photography, and illustration.

David creates infographics, large format and interactive displays, websites, plan layouts, and guides to communicate and inspire action on water quality, climate change, and sustainability issues. He designs educational outreach campaigns focused on reducing impacts from fertilizer, pet waste, septic systems, sanitary sewer systems, and plastics – and has logged thousands of hours in the community learning how best to communicate these issues.

Clients include five National Estuary Programs, County and Municipal governments, and area non-profit organizations.  David is Co-Executive Director of the Science and Environment Council, a non-profit consortium of 45 leading science-based environmental organizations working in Sarasota And Manatee Counties.

Before founding Shafer Consulting in Florida in 2009, David conducted research on fish ecology, taught college, and conducted analysis for establishing the largest marine protected area in the world — Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawai`i. David received a B.A. in Biology from Wabash College, where he was a Lilly Scholar.  He earned a Ph.D. from the University of Hawaii in Zoology, specializing in ecology.

Jennifer helps clients cut through complex information to gain clarity on mission critical issues. With an analytic instinct for structure and flow, she organizes ideas, strategies, and experiences so they flow and feel right—she’s a flow architect. Jennifer applies this superpower to natural resource protection, leading strategic planning and science communication efforts with purpose and professionalism. With two decades of experience in research, analysis, and stakeholder engagement, she has shaped insightful, creative strategies that advance environmental goals.

She is the co-owner and President of Shafer Consulting and serves as Co-Executive Director of the Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida—a collaborative network of 45 science-based environmental organizations along Florida’s Gulf Coast. Jennifer has been delivering results to non-profits, public agencies, advisory groups, and tasks forces in Southwest Florida for over 15 years. She served 12 years on Sarasota County’s Environmentally Sensitive Lands Oversight Committee, and currently serves on the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program Technical Advisory Committee.

Prior to her work on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Jennifer spent a decade practicing fisheries ecology, management, and policy consulting in Hawaii, where she worked on coral reef fisheries assessment, stakeholder engagement, and fishery regulations in the Northwest Hawaiian Islands. She served eight years on the faculty at Hawaii Pacific University in the Marine and Environmental Science Programs.

Her research and teaching have taken her to the San Blas Islands of Panama at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Station, to the Puget Sound of Washington at the National Marine Fisheries Service, and to remote locations of the Hawaiian Islands such as Hanalei Bay, Kauai, and Waimanu Valley, Big Island. Trained as a marine ecologist, she holds a B.A. in Biology from Wellesley College and M.S. and Ph.D. Degrees from the University of Hawaii in Ecology and Marine Resource Management.  Jennifer grew up in Sarasota, where her family has lived, worked and enjoyed the area’s natural lands and waters for more than half a century.