Delmarina López

Attorney; CEO, Delmarina López Consulting; Chicopee City Councilor: Age 27

Delmarina López aspired to be a lawyer — and did, indeed, practice law for a while after earning her juris doctorate at Western New England University School of Law. But she soon found that her passions — and there are several of them — also lay elsewhere.

Starting with her commitment to public service. She has long been active in the city of Chicopee, where she grew up, and in politics in general, and in 2021, she took that involvement to a higher level and ran for the Ward 3 seat on the City Council. She prevailed in that race — becoming the first Afro-Latina elected to any office in Chicopee — and currently serves on several committees, everything from water resources to education to zoning, while also focusing on public safety and working diligently to improve transparency in city government.

“Transparency is lacking; a lot of decisions get made, and people don’t realize why they’re being made or how we got there,” she said, adding that she considers herself an advocate for her constituents, and therefore she often winds up on the opposite side of the majority on many issues.

Meanwhile, another of her passions is helping small-business owners, which is why she is chief consultant for Delmarina López Consulting, an agency she founded in 2021. This venture supports small to mid-sized businesses with all aspects of formation; organizational structure; compliance; operational structure and processes; human resource; diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and strategies; branding; and more.

“I’m a firm believer that what you’re good at, you’re good at, and you bring onto your team what are not your strengths,” she said, adding that she helps business owners fill in those gaps.

She is also a board member of the YWCA of Western Massachusetts, a former member of the Center for Human Development’s human rights committee, and a member of the paralegal advisory committee at Bay Path University, where she earned a degree in criminal justice studies.

All this explains why López needed a box to carry everything she wanted to bring to her photo shoot. Indeed, she arrived with everything from a gavel to a photo of her grandmother, who inspired her in many ways, especially when it comes to civic engagement, and passed away recently; from a sign from her campaign to some books that mean something to her, and much more.

Those items speak volumes about someone who has always been committed to giving back and getting involved — not just with city government, but in her community.

 

—George O’Brien