Company: U.S. Water Services, St. Michael, MN, U.S.A
Company Description: Founded in 1976, U.S. Water Services provides engineered solutions for industrial and commercial customers combining chemical, equipment, engineering and service into one package tailored to address our customer's unique and specific challenges.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Employee of the Year

Nomination Title: Karen Danielson, Marketing Communication & Brand Manager

Describe for the judges the activities and accomplishments of the nominated entrepreneur since the beginning of July last year (up to 500 words):

In her time as a Marketing professional for U.S. Water Services, Karen has developed industry shaping tradeshow, print, online and social media strategy that uniquely represents the corporate vision and goals and ties them together with a customer approach. While most marketers in the industry focus on promoting their products and services, Karen chose to focus on the benefits of the products and services and how it resulted in success for the customer. This approach resulted in increased sales across the board for a wide variety of products and services for the company.

Keeping with this approach, Karen created a new website design for the company that focuses on a problem based approach rather than product and service focused like other competitors, which not only enable better search engine optimization, but position the company as an educator and problem solver by demonstrating an understanding of the customer's needs and putting them first.

In her booth design, while promoting the concept of water re-use and sustainability, Karen designed a completely live and re-usable landscape design to promote this idea. It won best booth and was the talk of the show for weeks to come (image attached). Working with five divisions, Karen has managed to create a cohesive brand family that works together and uniquely positions each segment and brand for a competitive advantage over the competition with cost-effective solutions - such as a motion graphics booth (image attached), new to the tradeshow family of booths, can be which can be customized for any industry and provides a new, unique feel to the tradeshow floor.

Karen's efforts have made her a leading marketer in her industry earning her recognition among her peers for Best Booth Design and nominations in the BtoB awards. She has been asked to teach up and coming marketers for local community and technical colleges on graphic design, strategy and standing out from the crowd in an otherwise saturated market.

Recently, U.S. Water hosted their national sales meeting supporting their entire sales force for a week long event. With the help of her peers, Karen coordinated and designed a meeting that reinforced the corporate vision and strategies and aligned them with all employees both new and old, renewing passion for the brand and working together as a team (image attached).

Passionate about the fact that brands are created and maintained by its people, Karen works hard to create employee loyalty and recognition programs presiding over a committee that plans events for the employees such as an annual indoor mini-golf tournament, chili cook-off and flag football games.

Provide a brief biography of the nominated employee (up to 100 words):

Karen has a bachelors degree in Psychology and an MBA in Marketing graduating with the highest honors in both degrees. She has worked in business to business marketing for over eight years and continues to advance her skills in strategy, development and campaign execution for print, online and social media on a national and international platform. She is proficient in web and graphic design as well as promotional strategy to elevate the corporate position.

In her spare time, Karen volunteers her marketing and graphic design experience for non-profit organizations to help increase their awareness.