Eva Schmid, Lotus Marketing Co.

Eva Schmid started Lotus Marketing Co. five years ago after moving to Dubuque and has built a client-base from scratch. Her work, she said, “formed around a need.”

“I don’t know that it’s something that my company necessarily adds, but (I) help clients add to the community,” she said. “I think through our services we’re able to help them enhance the community.”

Mantea Schmid nominated Eva for the honor and said she is a role model for young professional women.

“She knows who she is and has a positive, can-do attitude,” Mantea Schmid said. “She is a role model to others by exhibiting the confidence to take her place at any table. Through her self-assurance and willingness to explore any prospect, Eva is inspirational.”

Eva Schmid also plays an active role in community affairs through her role as a board member with the Dubuque Symphony Orchestra’s board — and one of its youngest.

As such, she said, she brings different ways to reach a new audience to the board in coordination with the symphony’s marketing director, Kathleen Hoeper.

Mantea said Eva’s work on the symphony’s development committee is an asset.

“Eva has the perfect personality for the development committee,” Mantea said. “She does not hesitate to take on assignments and willingly makes contacts for the symphony. Eva even makes cold calls, which are the most difficult contacts for fundraising.”

Eva’s interests also led her to be involved with Crescent Community Health Center’s 10th anniversary events. After the event concluded, the health center became one of her first clients when she launched Lotus Marketing.

Eva also recently completed her term on the St. Ambrose Alumni Association board, which she said she enjoyed as a way to help enhance the program and get more people involved.

“I think that before my term there wasn’t a strong alumni group in Dubuque,” she said, “and we were able to help bring annual happy hours to town and now someone else is taking that and running with it.”