Beverly Sussman's odyssey: From Brooklyn to Buffalo Grove

Since Beverly Sussman moved to Buffalo Grove in 1971, she has been involved in a number of ways.

She has been a science teacher in Kildeer Countryside School District 96, a member of the village's Commission for Residents With Disabilities, a village board member and, for the past eight years, village president.

Her tenure as president, however, ends May 15 when she hands over the reins to Eric Smith.

Sitting with her husband of 62 years, Martin Sussman, at their frequent hangout, the Continental Restaurant in Buffalo Grove, Sussman looked back on her half-century in the village.

The Sussmans trace their roots to Brooklyn, New York. They met through Beverly's mother.

“I was taking the bus to City College of New York, and Beverly's mother took the bus to work,” Martin Sussman said. “She came over to me one morning and she said to me, 'I have a daughter. Would you like to meet her?'”

While Martin was working at Sun Chemical, the firm transferred him to Chicago. The Sussmans found their dream home in Buffalo Grove.

“Three additions later, we still live there,” Beverly said.

Sussman embarked on a 25-year teaching career in 1979. The highlight was her Space Shuttle Club, an after-school activity for students.

“The first one ran for 24 hours straight,” she said of her mock missions, adding that someone from NASA did the countdown.

“It was so realistic that during the assembly that we had with parents and the school, one parent said to me, 'Are they really going into space?'”

Many of those students became doctors and scientists, but, she said, “The thing I like best is when I meet them and they tell me they still have their uniform from the Space Shuttle Club.”

Sussman also served as president of AIM Business Printers, the business she ran with her son Richard.

She became involved in village government through Martin, who was, and still is, a member of what is now the Rick Kahen Commission for Residents With Disabilities.

It was her commitment to residents with disabilities that prompted her to run for village trustee in 2009.

In 2015, she ran for president. One of her main issues was opposition to a proposal to redevelop the village campus and the golf course into a downtown.

“It was a floodplain and should not be built on,” she said. “It would flood houses all over and even the cemetery across the street.”

Sussman won reelection in 2019. Her tenure covered a time of significant change in the village. One game changer, she said, was the development of Woodman's Food Market and the Shops of Buffalo Grove at Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway, for years a dormant corner with signs promising - and not delivering - Berenesa Plaza.

But it was in Sussman's second term that Buffalo Grove accomplished something that some skeptics thought would never happen: the redevelopment of the Town Center, soon to be reborn as The Clove.

“For years, since I ran as a trustee, people said, 'When are you getting rid of that disgusting Town Center?' And now it's going to be a beautiful place with apartments, with shops, with a playground, with a place to have events, with restaurants,” she said.

Sussman appreciates the synergy that involves the village board, staff and Village Manager Dane Bragg.

“It doesn't take one person,” she said. “We all work together.”

And for eight years, sitting through meeting after meeting in his special chair at the back of the room, was her husband.

“A marriage is a good marriage when you support each other,” Martin Sussman said.

“Keep in mind, I traveled for 30 years. I wasn't home during the week. But I was home every weekend, and Beverly supported me no matter what I did. (Now) I support her in everything she does.”

The two have three sons and eight grandchildren.

As Beverly Sussman passes the baton, she is confident in Smith will successfully lead the village.

“He has been with the planning and zoning commission and he was chair of that commission for many years. I appointed him actually when there was an opening on the board, because I had a lot of confidence in him.”

Sussman said she has no immediate plans, “except maybe to get in the car and say, 'Honey, let's do something.'”