Jeff Furstenau

As the husband of Icelandic Roots founder and president Sunna Furstenau, Jeff is “Icelandic by Marriage”. He supported the start of Icelandic Roots as an investor and has volunteered as vice-president of the board from the beginning.

Jeff grew up as a farm kid in the rural area of Lodema Township, near the North Dakota Icelandic settlement. He met Sunna in 1977 when they were juniors in high school, and they married four years later. After graduating with a B.S. in Civil Engineering from the University of North Dakota, Jeff briefly worked in the oil fields of western North Dakota and Oklahoma. With their infant daughter, Jeff and Sunna moved back to North Dakota, where Jeff worked in precast concrete design and the construction industry. In 1988, with their growing daughter and a new son, Jeff and Sunna moved to Fargo, where Jeff joined Olaf Anderson, a local construction company formed in 1913. Starting out as a construction manager, Jeff quickly moved up to partner, then became president in 1999. By 2005, Jeff was the majority owner and working hard to grow the company. Today, Olaf Anderson is widely recognized for its exceptional competence in business, design, and construction, with a fantastic team of employees and a wide range of satisfied clients and sub-contractors.

Jeff is glad to support Icelandic Roots and “all things Icelandic”. As he says, “It makes my wife happy”.