They don’t refer to the United States as a cultural melting pot for nothing. Take a walk through any national attraction from the Guggenheim in New York to Austin’s own 6th St., and you’ll probably share that walk with people from all over the world.

You and your fellow patrons may not even speak the same language, but you have one thing in common: You’re consumers.

“At the end of the day, we’re all consumers,” said Carrie A. Hurt, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) serving Central, Coastal and Southwest Texas. “I take [my work at the BBB] personally. I want to make sure I help businesses be better in the services they offer, promote good businesses and expose bad business practices. I also want to educate consumers about business practices and make sure they feel safe doing business and get what they’re paying for.”

A true crusader for her community, the Austin native serves her fellow consumers not only through her work with the BBB, but also through her membership in a number of other non-profit organizations, including the GOTEPP advisory board and several national committees for the Council of Better Business Bureaus.

When it comes to her accomplishments with the BBB, however, Hurt seems more like a superhero than a CEO. Since she rose to the position of president and CEO in 2003, her regional BBB has grown from a small organization of 10 employees struggling to meet its national operating standards to one of the largest and most successful BBBs in the nation. Today, this BBB serves 62 counties in Texas and has more than 50 employees and 9,500-plus accredited business locations.

Although this BBB has earned considerable international acclaim in every area of BBB work, in 2009, it achieved the singular distinction of winning the BBB Marshall A. Mott Award for excellence in outstanding communications, which is widely accepted as the highest honor obtainable for a BBB.

In other words, it’s no understatement when Hurt says she has “a passion for taking a situation that’s facing problems and fixing them. I think doing business plans for a regional organization that is failing is something I really have a skill and a passion for.”

Hurt is hardly one to run away with all the credit, however. In fact, she attributes the BBB’s success primarily to her staff.

“We’ve been very fortunate,” Hurt said. “But we didn’t win those awards because we set out to win them; we won because our staff loves what they do and have a passion for it. They’re here because they want to be here.”

You could search the corners of the earth and still be hard-pressed to find leaders who value and appreciate their teams as much as Hurt.

“The most important thing any company has is [its] staff,” Hurt said. “They’re the people who carry out your mission. We try to make [the BBB] a place where people don’t want to leave. We don’t have a large amount of attrition, and we’ve worked hard for that culture. We encourage personal development, and we have fun. It’s amazing the loyalty and positive aspects that will come when you allow your employees to enjoy themselves.”

In other words, Hurt is one of those bosses most people wish they had. And several of her colleagues can vouch for that.

“[Hurt is] loved by her whole staff,” said T. Getterman, the CFO of Supercuts for Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi who’s known Hurt for years through the BBB board of directors and the Rotary Club of Austin. “The staff over there is wonderful. Carrie has surrounded herself with great people, which is the mark of a leader. She’s one of the most dynamic leaders I’ve ever worked with in the business world, and I can’t imagine anybody in the whole nation being better in her position than she is.”

Patti C. Smith, the president and general manager for KVUE-TV who works with Hurt on the BBB board of directors, also has nothing but good things to say about Hurt.

“She’s an innovative leader and consummate professional [who] takes pride in the team she leads,” Smith said. “It’s an honor to work alongside her as she guides the BBB toward reaching its goals for the future, always with the thought of serving the public with excellence.”

Getterman and Smith are hardly alone in their opinions on Hurt. In 2008, Hurt’s colleagues elected her for membership in the Bureau Operations Committee (BOC), which “is the highest honor to which a BBB CEO can be elected,” according to a company publication. The following year, Hurt ascended to the position of BOC chairwoman.

Excellence seems to follow Hurt wherever she goes. A born winner, she started collecting honors and awards during her days as a broadcast journalist. That’s right: Hurt’s multi-award-winning work with the BBB is the result of a switch from another multi-award-winning career.

Hurt began her journalism career after becoming the first in her family to attend college by enrolling in Southwest Texas State University – now Texas State University – and working as an intern at KVUE-TV. Upon her graduation in 1987, she went to work for KHOU-TV in Houston and later for KJAC-TV in Beaumont. As a journalist, she won a number of awards for investigative reporting and interviewed a lengthy list of notable names, including Oprah Winfrey and former president George H. W. Bush.

With a résumé like that, why would anyone want to make a career change?

“As much as I had a passion for and loved the news,” Hurt said, “it was not really conducive to a small child, and I was expecting my son. As a news reporter, one of my regular contacts was the BBB. I went to them for story ideas and leads.”

Since BBBs conduct investigations on various businesses and business practices, the journalist in Hurt took to the work immediately. She started working at the BBB in Beaumont in 1993 and switched to her current BBB in Austin in 1995. The rest, as the cliché goes, is history.

As much as she loves her work and her work loves her, however, Hurt’s No. 1 priority is her son, Trevor, now a 15-year-old football player at Round Rock High School.

“Trevor is a big kid with a gigantic heart and just about as big a sense of humor,” she said. “Like any other teenager, he tries his mom’s patience, but I wouldn’t trade him for the world. He’s the reason I go home in the evening. I love my job, but nothing compares to hugging your child. For me, there’s no better place than sitting in the stands watching him play football.”

She has a great job, a great family life and every reason to “wake up every morning and thank God for everything I have.” In other words, for Hurt, it truly is a wonderful life.