Judy Downs eyes the long game in her role as executive director of Emerge Iowa, an organization that strives to train and help women (Democratic) who seek public office. Emerge runs nationwide but is growing in Iowa, home of the first-in-the-nation caucuses of the presidential nominating process. Downs caught our attention not because of any political affiliation (the Business Record is an apolitical publication) but for the role she’s taking in equipping women to grow as leaders. Her LinkedIn profile doesn’t even mention politics but does say this: “Proactive decision maker and problem solver with a passion for improving quality of life in Des Moines.” She’s got skin in the game. Downs, a Des Moines native and an Urbandale transplant, is a first-year school board member for the Urbandale School District and has a lengthy background with a number of Greater Des Moines nonprofits such as the Iowa Environmental Council, Living History Farms and the Science Center of Iowa. She became the executive director for Emerge Iowa in March and has been spending time with candidates and preparing for some training sessions. We caught up with her recently over coffee at Scenic Route Bakery in the East Village.

Tell me a little about yourself.
I was born and raised in Des Moines. My parents still live in the house I grew up in. I went to Roosevelt [High School]. My husband went to Urbandale, that’s where we live now. We live actually a block away from where he grew up. I had some standards if we were to move out of Des Moines because I grew up a “Des Moines or die” person. I was proud I didn’t live in any suburbs. I needed trees. I needed greenery and not baby trees. We live on the greenbelt, and I absolutely love it. We have a 3-year-old, so it’s perfect. and I absolutely love it. We can walk to four playgrounds really easily, and it’s ideal. … I wanted some sort of connection. I was fascinated with the idea of going to the grocery store and seeing your parents’ friends at the grocery store or your family. Last September I was elected to the Urbandale School Board. That’s just given me a better connection to the district. I like the family history. I like saying, “Two blocks down, this is where my husband grew up.” It grounds us to the community. 

What are some of the draws to Iowa besides Des Moines, cost of living, etc., ability to reach out to different people?
I think political leaders and business leaders are especially accessible in this state. It’s just kind of a matter of taking the initiative. It’s something I tell younger women especially is that most mentors in Des Moines, most conversations in Des Moines, are just a call away. I think that’s something that attracts people to the community.

Tell me about your path to Emerge Iowa, where you are forging the path as its first executive director.
When I was 14, I was a freshman at Roosevelt volunteering for the Kerry campaign. The offices were right over where Western Gateway Park is now in one of those buildings. It might be the Americana building, it was on the first floor. We would go after school. I would be at Central Academy, so we would just walk down and we would get Papa John’s pizza and make calls and have people hang up on us for three hours. I got to meet the leading presidential candidate; I got to meet all his opponents. I got to meet Hillary Clinton that year. I definitely did not appreciate that privilege until I was living in Mississippi [for college]. So when I came back I worked in nonprofits. When I was in high school I worked at the Imax in the Science Center. I started a few weeks after the new building opened. I’m the daughter of two scientists. My mom has been at DuPont for almost 30 years, so the Science Center was always close to my heart. … I kind of worked my way up. My last job was as communications/promotions manager. I was able to learn a lot on the job. … You have to be able to wear multiple hats [at nonprofits]. I think of it kind of like improv. Amy Poehler wrote one of my favorite books, “Yes Please.” She talks about one of the biggest rules of improve is to say yes and not shut down the way a scene is going. If you want to be successful in a nonprofit, you need to say yes and figure it out. You have the opportunity to learn a whole lot if you want to. The Science Center taught me fundraising, communication, event planning; it’s amazing. I left to go to Living History Farms.

What did you do at Living History Farms?
I was the director of sales and events. I got to direct a team that managed all the front-end operations and planned so many of their amazing events. … It was an honor to work there. While I was there, part of my job was supervising the team that rented out our facilities. During my tenure, Hillary Clinton came. Mike Huckabee came. … That kind of gave me the bug to get back into my passion for politics that started when I was 14. I had debated through high school. That’s how I spent every spare moment. So going to the Iowa Environmental Council was a way to start thinking about policy and start working in that world. And then these women … got  together after 2016 and decided to bring Emerge to Iowa. I am so thankful for them. Then I saw this job opportunity. This is the perfect match.

What makes it the perfect match?
One of the things that makes it the perfect match is our mission is to increase the number of women, Democratic women, in politics. Our work is recruiting, training and empowering women to run for office. I get to, in a small way, do that every day with my life philosophy of encouraging the amazing women in my life to say yes to opportunities, to do more and to ignore people who are shutting them down or barriers they think that exist. Now I get to do that professionally. Every day my work is inspiring. We have so many internal barriers to our success. I’m a Sheryl Sandberg convert. I’m a “Lean In” convert, so I feel like I preach the “Lean In” gospel. She talks about internal barriers to success. There are a ton of external barriers. When you have a system that wasn’t set up for your success, you need to be the one advocating for it. … If a woman can master that, they better watch out. That’s kind of why it’s the perfect fit. 

What is an upcoming focus for you?
I think a lot of people are focused on the short game right now in the political sphere. They are thinking about the June primary. They are thinking about this November. I am really interested in next year’s municipal elections because I’ll tell you when I ran for school board I ran unopposed and I got 425 votes in a community with 40,000 registered voters. … A personal mission of mine is to increase voter turnout in municipal elections because that’s where a lot happens. Parents, when they have concerns about their student’s education, some things can be changed at the federal level, more things can be changed at the state level, but the biggest impact is going to be at the school board table. I believe the biggest impact to an individual who has problems with their neighborhood streets or their community parks or accessibility in their public buildings or events in their neighborhood, those decisions get made at the city level and the county level. Increasing participation at those levels, I think, we’re going to build a better pipeline for state and federal office. And that’s something I think we’ve been lacking in the state. And that’s ironic, because we have one of the leading policies on gender parity on appointed boards and commissions. That didn’t trickle over to elected office. The idea, I think, is that it would. … That’s why I am really thinking about who is going to be running for school board in my community, who is going to be running for school boards around the state next year, who’s going to be filling those city council seats and those mayoral seats. … With all the conversations you hear about women running for statehouse around the country, I bet it’ll be really interesting to see how many women will be running for mayor.