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Susan Dee: New Head of Essex Board of Trade

Susan Dee has her own way to telling another person’s age. If someone hears her last name and then makes a comment about the late actress Sandra Dee, Susan has the information she needs.

“If they mention that Sandra Dee, I have an idea how old they are,” she says—Sandra Dee starred as Gidget in the 1959 movie; actress Sally Field later played the part in a popular television sitcom.

Susan is the new head of the Essex Board of Trade (EBOT), the association of businesses, non-profits, and community organizations that not only promotes and supports local businesses, but also organizes events to enhance the town as both a destination for visitors and to provide entertainment and activities for local residents.

Now EBOT has more than 100 members. Susan, who took over from Amy Wilson D’Alessio of J. Alden Clothiers, emphasizes that the membership encompasses the three villages, Essex, Ivoryton, and Centerbrook that compromise the town of Essex. Susan makes a special point of crediting the hard work D’Alessio did for EBOT.

The board sponsors, among other events, the Essex Ed parade to mark Groundhog Day, the popular scarecrow Festifall that ushers in Halloween, and the Holiday stroll to mark the Christmas season. During the summer, EBOT sponsors Alfresco Thursdays, when restaurants and stores are open late on Essex Main Street for shopping, eating and strolling.

“We wanted to brand out town as a place where people could have that alfresco experience,” Susan says.

Upcoming at the end of March is the second annual Daffodil Days, celebrating the coming of spring with some 40,000 daffodils planted by Sullivan Landscaping for the Essex Foundation, which underwrites the event. EBOT publicizes Daffodil Days to emphasize Essex as a spring tourist destination and is encouraging both business and residences along Main Street in Essex, Centerbrook, and Ivoryton to decorate windows, planters, and doors with “anything daffodil” to create what Susan describes as a “Daffodil Way.”

Since the exact time when the daffodils will bloom is up to nature, not people, Susan says checking EBOT’s Instagram account, @experienceessex, will track the daffodils from when they peek out of the ground until full bloom.

Recently, EBOT contributed $2,000 to the Essex Tree Committee both for new plants and to care for existing trees.

Susan would like more residents to be aware of what EBOT does. Some three years ago, EBOT created new logo to give the organization a distinctive brand recognition: two E’s joined back to back above the words Experience Essex. The logo uses the colors red, white, and blue, with the blue, Susan says, representing the town’s connection to the Connecticut River.

This year EBOT embarked on another project to increase both visibility and funding: an appeal letter featuring the new logo to local residents.

“We are not supported by town government. We’re proud to bring people to Essex, but we can’t do it alone; we need funding,” Susan says.

The challenge local merchants face now, according to Susan, is how best to readjust to a post-COVID world.

“They realized what they had to do, they learned digital marketing, ordering online, websites; I’m so proud of how they responded,” Susan says.

The effects of the pandemic on businesses, according to Susan, varied; some areas like real estate and boating sales boomed during the pandemic. Others, among them restaurants, faced the challenges of lockdown.

As she looks at the business climate in Essex, Susan feels positive about the future.

“The trend is moving away from malls,” she says. “It is moving into main streets.”

Susan, who grew up in New Jersey and went to college in Florida, has had a long career in business and marketing. She has worked at advertising agencies Ogilvy & Mather and McCann-Erickson as well as in sales and marketing for US News & World Report and for Newsweek.

At first, Susan came to Essex on weekends because her then fiancé, now husband, Keith lived here. After her first child Liza was born in 1993, she divided her time between New York and Connecticut. She was the first woman at the Washington Post Company, which owned Newsweek, to have a flex-time schedule. When her son Philip was born in 1997, she resigned from Newsweek and lived full time in Essex. Her children both attended Essex Elementary School and Valley Regional High School.

“This is a great community to raise a family,” she says. “It’s walkable, friendly, safe. My kids were free here. They could ride their bikes. It’s a small town and now I am now proud to represent our small businesses.”

Susan worked for 10 years as the marketing manager of the Essex Steam Train and Riverboat (ESTR). During her time with the organization, innovations led to the rapid growth of the organizations signature events like the North Pole Express and the Santa Special, which grew from 9,000 to 45,000 attendees.

While she worked at ESTR, she was on the Board of Directors of Connecticut’s Central Regional Tourism District, and represented the steam train as a member of EBOT.

Since retiring from the steam train in 2013, Susan has done marketing for her husband’s firm, Osage Advisors, a business brokerage firm specializing in mergers and acquisitions.

Susan is a walker, often accompanied by her standard poodle Luka. The name used to be spelled Lucca but her son, a basketball fan, saw the possibility of honoring a star player with a slight spelling change. Now the name is Luka, in honor of Dallas Mavericks basketball player Luka Doncic.

For information on EBOT, visit essexct.com/board-of-trade or find EBOT on Instagram @experienceessex.