I recently visited a number of bakery owners who began their Great Harvest lives as employees. The apprenticeship of these future owners gave them great hands-on experience.
Perhaps as important as anything, working in the stores gave them the opportunity to explore their own path, their own passions, to see if making bread and running a neighborhood bakery was a livelihood they could love.
Owning your own small business, (especially a bakery!) has wonderful perks. You can create a caring culture where people blossom and thrive, reach out to customers with a feel-good experience, and support the local community in all kinds of ways. Those perks have inspired many an employee to seek the opportunity to own the business someday. In our case, perhaps the greatest perk of all is to be able to bake really awesome healthy whole wheat bread.
On my last trip to bakeries as a Franchise Field Support person, I realized eight of the eleven owners I visited had worked in Great Harvest bakeries prior to owning one!
Among the stores I visited was one of the first owner-employee partnerships in the system, initiated by Steve and Jane Owen, long-time owners of the Provo, UT Great Harvest. The Owens partnered with Brett and Sherri Remund, who opened their store in St George, UT in Feb 1993. Hard to believe that was over 20 years ago!
In 2004, the Remunds opened an additional store in Cedar City, UT. Four years later, they sold that business to Jeff Buccambuso. Jeff worked for James and Lisa Clawson’s Great Harvest in Logan, UT from the time he was 17 until he bought Cedar City at 21. The ties among the Great Harvest community fascinate me and this trip was like a walk through the history of many of these relationships. It was heartening to see opportunities that were made available to young people to attain their business ownership dreams.
I recall Steve Owen telling me years ago that he was looking for ways to keep and reward excellent employees. He realized the potential of partnering with them in additional stores. Over time, the partners would buy him out to become sole owners of the stores. He partnered with Brett and Sherri in St George in 1993, and again with Chiz and Aimee Lott in Las Vegas, NV in 1996.
Like Brett, Chiz and Aimee worked for Steve in his Provo and Orem Great Harvests. The Lotts opened two additional stores and sold one to Marcus and Tina Stewart in 2004. Marcus had also worked for the Owens up in Utah. The other they sold to Mike and Jodi Leishman, not former Great Harvest employees, but avid customers.
Kevin Peed, owner of Boulder, CO for 1-½ years, was a former manager for Zach England in Boise, ID. Zach, himself, had worked at both Ogden and Logan, UT Great Harvests before purchasing the Boise store from original owners Paul and Peggy Bohl. Jim Giveans worked as a manager of the Ft Collins Great Harvest before getting his own store in Longmont, CO. Jim Hansman, in Lakewood, CO, was chief baker for the original store owners and bought the store from them 4-½ years ago. These are just a few examples of the former employee-to-owner stories across the system.
What are the benefits to owning a business you’ve worked in? You know it’s a business you like and you’ve acquired skills that make the transition to ownership easier. There is always a learning curve as you step from employee to owner. We know that teaching and supporting new owners, whether they were former employees or not, is critical. And, of course, we still have lots of new owners come on board with no bakery experience at all.
Perhaps the best benefit of working in a business before you own it, is to discover if it’s a good fit. I was struck by the passion these former employee/owners I visited have for Great Harvest, for creating an oasis for customers in a crazy busy world, being the neighborhood bakery, and most of all, for the love of awesome healthy bread.
Has the transition been successful for every employee? No, it doesn’t work for every situation. But these role models for other employees represent the potential when you have the right people in the right business.
If you enjoyed Bonnie's post, you may want to read a collection of her bakery owner profiles from her many years of traveling to Great Harvest bakeries:
