The camera’s ready, the bow’s on top, and Caroline Fields, Mercedes’ marketing and events director, is beaming behind the lens. “This is your moment!” she always says before snapping the first photo. Whether it’s someone’s very first car, their dream car, or a long-awaited gift, she knows how much this day matters. She’ll take as many pictures as they want because people remember these moments — the feeling of standing next to the car they’ve worked for, hoped for, or surprised someone with.
Caroline lights up behind the scenes too, collaborating with team members to make videos that spotlight their Mercedes-Benz knowledge in fresh, playful ways. “I love getting them out of their comfort zone a little,” she says. “It shows the personality of our people — and that’s what makes this place so special.”
For Caroline, the joy of working at Mercedes isn’t about the horsepower or the shine (though she loves both). It’s about people — the team that shows up for one another, the customers who bring their own stories through the doors, and the shared pride of being part of something rooted in Birmingham. That spirit runs through every corner of the dealership.
When general manager Luke Elder talks about Mercedes-Benz, he doesn’t start with cars. He starts with people. After more than two decades with the brand — including a decade in Florida before making Birmingham home — he’s seen enough to know that culture can’t be manufactured. It’s either real or it isn’t.
“What we have here is genuine,” he says. “‘Expect Excellence’ isn’t just a slogan on a billboard. It’s people who are genuinely working to deliver something excellent — not just by automotive standards, but by luxury retail standards. That effort is real and ongoing.”
Luke leads the team, but he’s the first to credit them with everything that makes the place what it is. “I don’t sell the car. I don’t pull it around. I don’t service it or wash it,” he says. “They’re the ones who make this place what it is.”
As the dealership grows, Luke listens carefully during interviews, tuning in to how candidates talk about their work. He’s not looking for rehearsed answers; he’s listening for we instead of I — for people who see themselves as part of something bigger than their own success. Those are the ones who fit.
Each week, Luke sits in on the Wednesday culture meeting, a standing tradition where the team pauses to recognize moments that reflect the company’s values — flowers sent to a customer, a baby shower for someone adopting, an impromptu stop to help a driver stranded on the side of the road. These stories remind Luke why he’s proud to work alongside them. “No one here has to be told to care,” he says. “They just do.”
If you call the service department, there’s a good chance the first voice you’ll hear belongs to Jordan Morris. She calls herself a “professional nagger” with a grin — because she’s the one who keeps the details moving.
“Excellence is all the tiny things people don’t see,” she says. “Making sure every part is here, every shuttle is on time, every note is clear. It’s making a strong first impression and continually living up to it.”
Jordan has grown with the company from day one, moving into her role as guest services manager and building a team that understands what care really means. “I didn’t know anything about cars when I started,” she says. “But I knew how to make people feel taken care of.”
For Jordan and her team, service calls are about turning someone’s day around. “We always say our goal is to ‘get someone to Grandma’s house,’” Jordan says — which is especially literal during the holidays.
Her five-person team works like a well-rehearsed ensemble. They’re the ones who make sure the person on the other end of the line doesn’t feel rushed or forgotten. “I want them to hang up feeling like someone actually heard them,” Jordan says. “And to say, Okay, this is going to be easier than I thought.”
She started her career at Mercedes in February 2015. “Over ten years later, I’m still here,” she says. “That tells you a lot about the culture. People here care about relationships and about others. And they empower us to go above and beyond for our customers.”
Director of fixed operations Cecil Sims has spent most of his life with Mercedes-Benz — since 1991. “Cut me, I bleed Mercedes,” he says with a laugh. He’s the man behind everything after the sale — service, parts, detail — the steady rhythm that keeps the dealership running. His S-Class plug-in hybrid has been his daily ride for nearly a year, and he’s only filled the tank three times.
“Mercedes-Benz’s mantra is ‘The Best or Nothing,’ and I live by it,” Cecil says. “We’re a luxury retailer, not a car dealership — and we conduct ourselves as such.”
That philosophy shows up in countless small, human ways. Just this week, roadside technician Dennis Timmons left his own birthday dinner to help an S-Class owner whose car wouldn’t start. With no loaners left, Dennis drove to the customer’s home and fixed it on the spot. Cecil shakes his head, smiling. “You can’t coach that. Either it’s in you or it isn’t. That’s who we are.”
He talks about the brand the way some people talk about family: steady, proud, no theatrics. “We live to take care of our customers,” he says. “We live to make a bad situation a good situation — to solve their problems.”
Off the clock, Cecil is a husband, dad, and grandfather who loves Birmingham. “At Mercedes, we are committed to our community, to success, and to making a positive footprint in Birmingham,” he says. “And our service is top-notch. That’s one of the many reasons people stay with Mercedes-Benz.”
Nicholas Saban grew up around excellence — and for the past decade, he’s helped shape it at Mercedes-Benz of Birmingham. When his family purchased the dealership in 2014, he stepped in soon after, determined to learn the business from the ground up.
A graduate of the University of Alabama and the National Automobile Dealers Association Academy, he now serves as sales manager, with plans to one day lead the store as dealer principal. “We do everything we can to live up to Mercedes-Benz’s promise of ‘The Best or Nothing.’”
He still remembers the day the Irondale location opened. “I knew having this beautiful building paired with the standard we were building would lead us to great heights,” he says.
For Nicholas, the name Mercedes-Benz is a legacy. “When someone buys a Mercedes-Benz, they’re stepping into more than a century of craftsmanship and innovation,” he says. “It’s our job to make sure that experience feels first-class in every way.”
When it’s his turn behind the wheel, his pick is easy: the Mercedes-AMG G 63, matte black with red interior. “It’s powerful, capable, and refined all at once,” he says. “The roar of that biturbo V8 never gets old.”
And Caroline — whether she’s helping capture someone’s big moment with a bow on top or greeting a guest enjoying a treat from Miss Cindy at the café — spends her days representing a company that shows up for its community. (Her secret, she’ll tell you, is to slip the chocolate chip cookie under the foil of your sandwich to warm it up.)
She and the team at Mercedes believe it’s the extra little things that make all the difference. “A car might bring someone here,” she says, “but it’s the way they feel when they’re with us that makes them want to stay.”