Beverly Sussman was an award-winning middle school science teacher in Buffalo Grove for 25 years before beginning a second act on the Buffalo Grove Village Board, where she served as a village trustee for six years and then for another two terms as village president.
During her time leading the village, Sussman pointed with pride to numerous developments in town that she championed, including a Woodman’s grocery store and the Shops of Buffalo Grove retail project, along with a commitment to increased transparency and modernized infrastructure.
“She cared deeply about the village,” said former Buffalo Grove Trustee Andy Stein. “He cherished the fact that she was able to give back to a community that gave so much to her and her family.”
Sussman, 84, died of a heart attack on Dec. 6, said her son, Richard. She had lived in Buffalo Grove since 1971.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1941, Sussman graduated from Samuel J. Tilden High School in Brooklyn’s Flatbush neighborhood. She then earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brooklyn College.
Sussman moved to Buffalo Grove with her husband after his job transferred him to the Chicago area. In 1978, she took a job teaching science to sixth graders at Ivy Hall School, later Twin Groves Middle School, in Buffalo Grove.
While at Twin Groves in 1992, Sussman developed and served as “commander” of a space shuttle program for the school’s Space Shuttle Club — including three-day simulated space missions in a Quonset hut in the school’s gym known as the “Habitat”— to help teach astrophysics.
Using walkie-talkies, students clad in white space jumpsuits staffed the makeshift space shuttle — known as Endurance — in six-hour or eight-hour shifts, while others took part in mission control. NASA contributed to the effort, providing meteorites and moon rocks that students would study while in the habitat, and also offering the students the ability to chat with astronauts who had flown on actual space shuttles. The project started with a simulated takeoff and concluded with a simulated splashdown.
“I don’t believe in teaching from a book,” Sussman told the Tribune in 1994. “I use activities and experiments.”
Before retiring from teaching in 2004, Sussman was honored with the Buffalo Grove-Long Grove Elementary District 96 Foundation for Education Excellence’s 2003 Crystal Apple award, and she was also one of four Illinois teachers in 1994 honored with a Presidential Award for Excellence in Science and Mathematics Teaching.
“I try to find learning situations anywhere and everywhere I can find them,” Sussman told the Tribune in 1993. “Everything in life is science, not just that 46 minutes (of class). There’s no room or doubt in my mind about being anything else but a teacher. I have never had a regret.”
Arlen Gould, a board member in Wheeling-based Community Consolidated District 21, recalled Sussman teaching his son about space and astronomy in the mid-1990s.
“Her patience and commitment to learning made her a marvelous teacher,” he said.
Sussman’s involvement with village government started in the mid-1990s, when she and her husband, Martin, noticed people improperly parking in handicapped parking spaces. They found it both illegal and galling, as her husband struggled to walk and sometimes would return home empty-handed when he could not find parking near a store. So they approached the village’s Rick Kahen Commission for Residents with Disabilities, and soon afterward, she joined the commission.
Sussman also served on Buffalo Grove’s 50th anniversary committee. After 15 years on the disabilities commission, Sussman ran for village trustee in 2009 and won. She won reelection as trustee in 2013.
Two years into her second term as trustee, Sussman decided to run for village president in 2015 against incumbent Village President Jeffrey Braiman. Sussman ran in part after a controversial, 65-acre built-from-scratch “downtown” project on Lake-Cook Road had been proposed but never approved the prior year after village leaders made clear they would not provide the level of financial assistance that the developer had desired. Sussman had opposed that project due to its likely impact on nearby homes and the fact that the land was in a flood plain.
Sussman defeated Braiman in 2015. In her first term, one of her biggest wins was working with the rest of the Village Board and village staff toward the approval and opening of a 240,000-square-foot Woodman’s grocery store at the northwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway. The store opened in September 2018.
“That piece of property at Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway had been vacant for more than 35 years,” Sussman told the Tribune in 2018. “I remember for years there was always a sign on the property saying, ‘Coming Soon.’ But ‘coming soon’ did not come soon enough.”
The southwest corner of Milwaukee Avenue and Deerfield Parkway was also developed with the Shops of Buffalo Grove strip shopping center during Sussman’s first term.
“Those are not my accomplishments,” Sussman told the Tribune in 2019, referring to developments at that intersection. “They are everyone’s accomplishments, the trustees, the staff, all of us.”
Sussman narrowly won reelection in 2019. During her second term, initiatives that she was part of reviewing, approving and supporting included Northwest Community Healthcare’s new four-story medical office building on Lake-Cook Road, a new WJ Golf indoor golf facility and a new Vin90 restaurant on Half Day Road. She also oversaw planning for the village’s new Public Works Department facility, and championed revitalizing streets, water pipes and sanitary sewers.
Sussman also noted that in her second term, Buffalo Grove residents did not see a tax increase, and she made meetings more accessible by streaming village meetings live on Facebook and regularly posting a village newsletter.
In her second term, Sussman also helped endorse the village’s first-ever gay pride parade, which had been organized by 13-year-old Molly Pinta.
“We have people with different nationalities and religions, we have the whole spectrum of diversity in Buffalo Grove and this is another phase of being diverse,” Sussman told the Tribune in 2019. “Here’s a young lady who wants everyone to accept and respect each other. How can you find anything wrong with someone who wants that? For a 13-year-old girl to say that, I think that’s very commendable.”
Gould said that as village president, Sussman “listened to all.”
“She wanted to know what the real issues were and was dedicated to finding solutions that could work for all,” he said. “Her sense of humor, energy, humanity and incredible dedication to do the right thing for the community always were her strengths. Beverly was an expert in getting people to collaborate. And … that collaboration coupled with her demand for mutual respect and a willingness to handle news, good and bad, moved Buffalo Grove into the future with hope and civility.”
Pete Panayiotou, a longtime friend who owns the Continental Restaurant in Buffalo Grove, recalled Sussman seeking his input on business issues related to the village.
“She talked to everybody and respected everybody,” Panayiotou said. “She was so smart and so intelligent. She was an amazing human being.”
Sussman chose not to seek reelection in 2023. She told the Tribune in 2023 that in 29 years of service to the village, she missed only three meetings — twice when she was in the hospital and once during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I won’t go anywhere if it means missing a meeting, so I won’t go on trips…if they interfere with meetings,” she told the Tribune. “And my husband and I have reached a point where we’d like to be able to say, ‘Let’s go to such-and-such place,’ and get in the car and go, or to be able to make reservations and go, which I haven’t been able to do in all these years. It’s time to get back to normal life and do what we want to do when we want to do it.”
After retiring as village president, Sussman spent time in Florida with her husband, her son said.
In addition to her son, Sussman is survived by her husband of 65 years, Martin; two other sons, Howard and Robert; eight grandchildren; and a sister, Gladys Goldsmith. Services were held.
Whether as village president or afterward, Sussman was a perpetually enthusiastic ambassador of her community, her colleagues said.
“I always say Buffalo Grove is a great place to live, work and raise a family,” she told the Tribune in 2023.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
