Jennifer Van Horn is the vice president of construction and planning at the Toledo Zoo, overseeing the Master Plan for future capital projects and the design and construction of projects at the Toledo Zoo. Her department oversees a 10-year/ $90 million dollar capital fund focused on using skilled local labor, Lucas County businesses, and minority business enterprises; and completed the largest Zoo project to date, $30 million, the ProMedica Museum of Natural History, which received a Build Ohio award from the Associated General Contractors of Ohio (AGCO); she also works with the core development teams at the Toledo Zoo to develop project concepts, hires and works with the executive design consultants and architects / engineers to design and develop the project documents, and hires and manages the contractors, construction managers, and artists on projects.

Van Horn has worked in the community to improve the lives of northwest Ohio in low income neighborhoods as an advocate for thoughtful planning and design in Toledo. She is the current co-chair and a board member of Toledo Design Collective (TDC), a non-profit focusing on working with neighborhoods to provide strategic and thoughtful urban planning in the city of Toledo, currently working in the Broadway Mile Plan in the Old South End neighborhood. In the past few years TDC has been updating its strategic plan as it has gone from a volunteer organization to two full-time paid staff and multiple interns a year – and as an executive board member during this time, she has been integral to this process.

She has also been a board member of the Broadway Corridor Coalition (BCC), the non-profit community organization in the Old South End implementing the Master Plan since 2017. As the chair of the economic development committee, Van Horn has been focused on neighborhood revitalization, which includes the $150,000 the BCC received from the City of Toledo to build a gateway arch at the end of 2021. She is currently on the executive board as the treasurer, after serving as the acting president / vice president.