From former corporate executives to small town schoolteachers, Great Harvest bakery owners are an inspiring group of people who have found a way to make better lives for themselves.

To get to know a few of the faces of Great Harvest and their stories, read on!

Jason & Natalie Pennock, Draper, Utah - Opened Bakery in 2005
Pete Rysted, Great Falls, Montana - Purchased Bakery in 1982
Bill & Peggy Dial, Albuquerque, New Mexico - Opened Bakery in 1989
Ian & Liz Kidd, Duluth, Minnesota - Opened Bakery in 1997

Once a Great Harvester, always a Great Harvester.

At least that's what Jason Pennock, co-owner of the Great Harvest bakery in Draper, Utah, will tell you.

For about six years, both Jason and his wife Natalie worked together at the Great Harvest bakery in Holladay, Utah. That's where the couple met, eventually marrying. It's also where the two got hooked on Great Harvest.

During their time at the Holladay bakery, Jason and Natalie were working towards their college degrees: Natalie in Nursing at Westminster College, and Jason in Horticulture at Utah State University. After graduating, Natalie went to work as a registered nurse at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City, and Jason started up a successful landscape design and consultation business. But for Jason, something was missing.

"Great Harvest is in our blood," says Jason. "We love the bread, we love the people, and we love the basic beliefs that this company is founded upon." The couple also missed the days of working together.

So in 2002, Jason and Natalie decided to chase down their dream of owning their own Great Harvest. The Pennocks partnered with Rand & JoEllen Kunz of the Taylorsville, Utah, Great Harvest bakery to open up their Draper bread shop. Jason gave up his horticulture career and Natalie, still passionate about her nursing work, helped out between hospital shifts.

The couple worked tirelessly for over three years, overcoming hurdles, hunting for just the right location, and putting together all the painstaking details. The Pennocks opened their bakery in April of 2005. The long wait was well worth it: the bakery sold out of bread for the first four days they were open, and the business is still going strong.

The young, energetic couple love that building their bakery has brought their families even closer. Parents, brothers, sisters, and cousins chipped in, from the windmill handcrafted by Jason's dad to the cabinetry and display hutch built by Natalie's dad. Jason's brother, BJ, another Great Harvest-Holladay protégé, is also a major player and has assumed some key production responsibilities.

Now with a daughter Ellie (born in 2003), the Pennocks are glad that they've chosen the path of small business ownership. Jason admits it's been a lot of hard work, but says, "We couldn't imagine doing anything else."

It was 1982 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pete Rysted found himself unemployed and in the midst of a major economic recession. For more than twenty straight years—since he was 11 years old—he'd held a job. But after a second layoff, Pete decided he didn't want a job anymore. He wanted his own business.

"That major spell of unemployment was the best thing that could've ever happened to me," he explains. "I needed that kick in the pants."

That weekend, Pete picked up the Sunday paper. Instead of going to the "Help Wanted" ads, Pete skipped straight to the "Business Opportunities" listings. Clear as day, Pete can still remember the ad headline: "Whole Wheat Bread Bakery For Sale." Pete didn't know much about baking, but he sure did like the sound of Montana. Being an avid climber and outdoorsman, Pete had already put 10,000 miles on his car in six weeks of driving back and forth between Minnesota and the Rocky Mountains.

So the very next day, Pete Rysted called the owners of the little Great Falls bakery. Pete Rysted scheduled a meeting with Pete & Laura Wakeman for that Thursday, drove out to Montana, and six weeks later, the bakery was his.

Pete remembers being scared to death at the proposition of baking bread and running a bakery. "It was like being thrown into the deep end of a pool," he recalls. But after his first week of training, Laura and Pete W. agreed: Pete Rysted was born to bake.

Bread has always been #1 in Pete's mind and in his business. From the beginning, he felt the Great Falls Great Harvest had a mystique, a reputation to uphold. He wanted to maintain a bakery "where bread reigns supreme." Indeed, bread still does reign supreme in the Great Falls Great Harvest! Great Falls is known for some of the best bread in the system, and Pete's passed on the tradition by having taught the craft to countless current owners.

As parents of two young kids (Jake, born in 1998; and Ali, born in 2002), Pete and his wife Mel enjoy the lifestyle that the bakery has provided them. Pete explains, "Owning this bakery has really opened the world to me. It's changed my life in ways I never would have thought possible."

Hailing from Huntington, West Virginia, Peggy and Bill met while in college at Marshall University in Huntington. Bill was attending on the G.I. Bill of Rights after three years in the army. Peggy was attending on a scholarship. They first saw each other while working in the college library. They married less than a year later.

Following graduate schools at the University of Arkansas and the University of Illinois, the Dials returned to Huntington where Peggy taught high school biology and Bill worked in the industrial water chemical business. Corporate moves took them to Parkersburg, W. Va., Chicago, Denver, Philadelphia, and Kansas City. In 1988, the Dials became frustrated with life as corporate gypsies, they became dropouts for most of a year as they searched for another way to earn a living and another place to live.

It was in a magazine that Peggy discovered Great Harvest was actually a franchise. She had shopped at the Great Harvest bakery while living in Kansas City. The bread was love at first bite. And, it just so happened the franchise culture was a fit and Albuquerque was open for a bakery.

The Dials opened their Great Harvest bakery in June of 1989. The opening team was Peggy, Bill, Rebecca (their youngest daughter), their son Jim, and a friend of Rebecca's. Bill baked the bread, Peggy the sweets, and the youngsters worked on the sales counter. With increased sales the team expanded, the bakery became larger, and the product line exploded.

In 1999, the Dials' oldest daughter, Ann Merrick, moved with her family from Philadelphia to Albuquerque to become the bakery's general manager. Soon after, Ann's oldest son Ryan started bakery work after school and during the summers. Now, Ann's high school daughter Kelly fills in at the counter. Ryan still works when home from college. Great Harvest is a way of life for three generations of Dials!

For the first time, the Dials have settled down in one place long enough to become part of their community. Their Great Harvest bakery is recognized and respected throughout the town, a source of pride for Peggy and Bill. "Great Harvest is much more than just another way to earn a living," explains Bill. "We serve the community with nutritious products, are challenged by a never-ending learning process, and have made so many cherished Great Harvest friends along the way."

Milwaukee native Liz Kidd always loved the bread and hometown feel of the Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, Great Harvest. So when she learned it was a franchise, she told her husband Ian, this might be just the change we're looking for.

The timing was right. For the past six years, the Kidds had bounced from Milwaukee to Chicago to Cincinnati as Ian pursued a professional hockey career and Liz put her work in speech pathology on hold. Ian had been a college hockey standout, leading the University of North Dakota to a national championship in his sophomore year. That same season, he was drafted by the Vancouver Canucks and played for both NHL and IHL teams. But the lifestyle was wearing thin. "We had two young daughters, I was traveling all the time, and we were constantly moving," recalls Ian. "Something had to give."

The Kidds decided to put family first and started searching for something that would allow them to settle down and be parents to their two girls, Emma (born in 1993) and Paige (born in 1994). The Kidds moved to the charming lake town of Duluth, Minnesota. They opened their Great Harvest Bread Co. bakery there in 1997, just months after the birth of their son David. Since then, their Duluth Great Harvest has become a neighborhood destination. Walk through its doors any day of the week and you'll find there's hardly a customer the Kidds don't know by name.

Though the Kidds are still very hands-on in the bakery, the business has allowed them the freedom and flexibility to do the things they love to do. For Liz, it's volunteering her time as a board member of the Duluth Playhouse and involving herself with their three kids' various after-school sports and activities. For Ian, hockey's still in his blood, whether it's coaching his own kids or those on the hockey team at top-ranked Marshall High School. Ian also fills in as an expert owner-trainer for Great Harvest, coaching new owners at grand openings across the country and franchise training weeks in Montana.

Today, the Kidd family is thankful for the ways the bakery has brought their family together. Ian's afternoons are often free, and Liz is able to take summers off from the bakery, to spend time with the kids. "We've never had to send the kids to daycare," says Liz. "It's a luxury so many parents don't have, and we feel lucky because of it."