WestWordVision's Paula Schaper, right, with clients Christina and Fred Wilhelm and staffers Liz Collier and Lars Marshall, from left, in Patagonia.

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Director I - Network Development

The sloping green and golden hills of Patagonia — population around 900 — provide a natural auditorium for Paula Schaper.

In 1997, the Ohio native started WestWordVision, a full-service marketing and communications agency nestled comfortably on the northern edge of Patagonia.

Weaving together the principles of marketing and performance, Schaper said her company's goal is to bring clients center stage, directing their marketing with a small crew of graphic designers, artists, writers and industry veterans.

"When I was young and I would draw images of my future, I drew myself as a businesswoman," Schaper said.

"But if you had asked would I be a business owner? Nah, never," she added — with a wave of her hand dismissing the idea.

The daughter of an engineer and sister of local performance artist Ned Schaper — commonly known by his artist persona, Mat Bevel — Schaper originally studied engineering and later harp performance at the University of Michigan in the '80s.

After a wrist injury curtailed her performance career, she drifted into promotions, working for a concert production company whose client list included jazz musicians such as Miles Davis.

"I thought if I couldn't play music, I'll produce it," she said. "I loved the promotional component of it."

While in Michigan, Schaper met her company's current art director, Lars Marshall, whom she credits for getting her first job at an advertising agency.

"We'd be sitting together in meetings, and she would constantly whisper ideas to me," Marshall recalled. "She has an intuitive ability to get to the heart of it."

After spending a couple of years in San Francisco, she moved to Tucson in 1996 to help her brother promote the then-four-year-old Mat Bevel Institute.

"I needed to get away from total pop music," Schaper said. Pop meant higher budgets and greater visibility, but "I needed to do something more for me."

A year later she relocated to Patagonia and set up shop as WestWordVision.

"I'm fascinated with communications and messaging of all kinds. I just came back to what I was familiar with," she said.

Clients include Nogales Community Development Corp., cookie-dough maker Otis Spunkmeyer of San Leandro, Calif., the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, and Del Campo — one of the top three importers/exporters of Mexican-grown tomatoes. Last year, WestWord received five local ADDY Awards, including one gold, for its work on three separate campaigns.

Martin Ley, Del Campo's general manager, had approached Schaper for help on creating a consistent brand across the company's four product lines: Classic, Organic, Reserve and Gourmet.

"A lot of times when you think of those kinds of activities (marketing and brand creation), you're thinking about designers in New York, or San Francisco or Vancouver," he said. "And here they were, having fun and enjoying the sounds of the birds in Patagonia, just right around the corner from us."

On this particular afternoon Schaper is seated in the small seating area that doubles as a conference room and employee lounge.

Parked outside is a vintage Airstream trailer — dubbed the "Airstream of Consciousness" by the staff — that serves as Schaper's office, impromptu meeting room and hangout.

Alternatively described as flexible, collaborative and enthusiastic by clients and her staff, Schaper is also busy. She continues to play the harp and is president of the Santa Cruz Valley Heritage Alliance.

"Ah, the electric redhead!" exclaimed Nils Urman, president of the Nogales Community Development Corp., when asked about Schaper. Working with her has enabled NCD "to take our work to a level we've never been at or had the opportunity to get at."

"What's fascinating is that there's this enormous talent pool that's extremely creative and they're lurking around the hinterlands of rural Arizona," he said.

Schaper intends to keep it that way, remaining in Patagonia to guide her own vision of an agency where clients play the leading roles.

See on the job, D5