When people looking to do business visit Cullman for the very first time, it tends to leave an impression.

“You just have to get them here. When you get them here, and they drive around and see it — well, it just sounds too easy, but really and truthfully, if you can just get them to Cullman — it sells itself.”

That’s the outlook of Susan Eller, who since the late 1990s has played a vital role in the city’s recruitment and retention of businesses as part of the small, but hugely effective team at the Cullman Economic Development Agency (CEDA). A Good Hope native with lifelong roots in Cullman County, she’s a big believer in the area’s intrinsic assets: its educational resources and quality of life, its small-town footprint elevated by a robust community culture, and its cooperative association of business-friendly municipal governments.

Take a drive past a new restaurant or retail center, and it’s easy to see the local result of her agency’s efforts. But describing Eller’s role among CEDA’s active squad of economic specialists can be a little tougher. Alongside Director Dale Greer and a tight-knit group of staffers, she wears many hats in a job that often overlaps with those of her versatile teammates.

Planning and coordinating special agency events (including announcements and groundbreakings), plus retail recruitment, workforce development and guiding project development for the Duck River dam and reservoir all are high on the list of her official work responsibilities. But Eller has a more down-to-earth way of assessing what it is she’s really there to accomplish.

“It makes you proud that you get to see the growth and the changes that make a difference in people’s lives,” she reflects. “I was visiting a school one time, and I asked a little boy, a kindergartner, ‘Where does your dad work?’ And he goes, ‘My dad works in Birmingham,’ and he said that it takes his dad an hour to drive to Birmingham every day. I said, ‘Well, my job is to help bring a business here that, hopefully, will bring your dad closer to home so he can spend two more hours a day with you.’ And he said, ‘Cool!’”

With a population currently scraping the 20,000 threshold, Cullman isn’t a huge city and never has been. But as its home county nears the 100,000 population milestone amid a recent surge in growth across the wider area, Eller’s agency faces challenges that look very different from the ones it’s overcome — often to award-winning and professional acclaim — even in the recent past.

Part of that, hints Eller, is a result of Cullman’s very success. “The cost of land is becoming somewhat of an issue now,” she says, “and, then, ‘front-row’ land is becoming a part of it, too. If you’re talking to a national brand and they want to be seen, they want to be front-row or no row, and with the growth that we’ve had over the past few years, that’s becoming more and more of an issue — especially out at the edges; on the interstate exits and at our shopping centers.

“But aside from that,” she adds, “we also don’t ever want to neglect or forget what’s going on in our downtown area — because those are the people who are already part of our community. We love it, of course, when our national retailers come into town. But we also love our small local businesses that support our community — the kind of businesses, when you have an event and there are sponsors for it, whose names are on the back of your kids’ T-shirts. Truthfully, if this wasn’t such a vibrant community because of that, we might have a harder time recruiting nationally — because when those people drive through our downtown area and see how successful it is, they’re like, ‘I want to be a part of that.’”

A three-term elected member of the Good Hope City Council, Eller enjoys a broad view of the retail opportunities and obstacles that extend beyond the borders of the city of Cullman.

“My job here, I would say — at least I would hope! — makes me a better council member there,” Eller says. “I’ve had somebody at Good Hope who was having an issue, and I’d call this other person I knew [through CEDA] and I said, ‘I know you can’t fix it … but can you check on this and see what’s going on and see if there’s anyone this person can talk to?’ And less than a week later, they get back with an answer — and everything’s good to go.”

Through a career that began fresh from high school as a bookkeeper (and, eventually, a department manager) at The Sport Center in Cullman, then carried her to the local Chamber of Commerce as Director of Tourism, Eller’s current place among the city’s economic development team first took flight during the late-1990s formation of the Duck River dam and reservoir project. She cites that and other long-range growth projects as exemplars of the Cullman area’s cooperative spirit; a spirit she says local leaders have embraced while thinking about their hometown’s progress in terms of decades rather than years.

“When it comes to growing your town, I feel like so many of our leaders have looked at things not necessarily as, ‘Hey, look at all the tax revenue we’re getting this year from these new businesses,’ but in a much more long-term way,” she explains. “They did it with Duck River, and if you just think about it, they did it even in the 1960s. They built Lake Catoma, and that was a 24 million gallon per-day water source. The city of Cullman didn’t need that much water at the time: ‘Why would you spend that much money on a water source?’

“But they did it because they planned for the future — and I think that’s what’s been great about our leadership. In the past and, I think, in the present, too, they continually think about what’s going to make us better: ‘How can we stay ahead and make our community grow?’ We’ve had far-sighted leadership, and I’ve been very lucky to land in this role and be a part of it. The people I work with trust me, and I trust them. I honestly can’t imagine doing anything else — and I mean, I could retire right now. I can leave anytime! — But you know? I love it here. I really can’t think of anything else that I would rather do.”