November 19, 2025 • 40 mins
This week on Arroyo Grande, Raymond sits down with Cordia Harrington — Founder & Co-Chair of Crown Bakeries Cos., and the legendary “Bun Lady” behind billions of buns for McDonald’s, Burger King, Five Guys, Trader Joe’s, and more. Her rise from single mother of three to one of the richest self-made women in America is a story of grit, faith, and unstoppable determination.
Cordia shares how she went from selling real estate to owning McDonald’s franchises, then took a massive leap at age 43 — selling her stores and taking out a multimillion-dollar loan to build what became Crown Bakeries. She reveals why recessions can be the best time to start a business, what kept her pushing after 31 rejections, and how prayer and persistence guided every breakthrough.
From surviving near-disaster in her bakery to building a family-centered company rooted in integrity and opportunity, Cordia’s story is packed with wisdom for anyone chasing a dream at any age.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If you've ever eaten at MacDonald's, Burger King or five Guys,
chances are you've had one of her buns. They call
it the bun Lady, But the story of how a
single mother rose to the top of the Forbes list
of richest self made women in America is one of
grit and confidence. You have to hear. Cordia Harrington is
my guest on this edition of A Royal Grande. Come on,
(00:33):
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to a Royal Grande. Go subscribe
to the show. Now turn the notifications on so you
know what's coming. And if you'd like to support our show,
please visit Raymondarroyo dot com. There's a donatepar there. Before
we get to the Bun Lady and her incredible business
and life lessons, let's go to the culture counter. This
(00:54):
AI thing is getting way out of control. Sitting atop
the Billboard's Country Digital Song chart is someone who doesn't exist,
breaking rust. The artist is entirely AI generated.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He may look like a.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Cowboy, but he's just as fake as the song generated
by the machine. Walk My Walk. The song in question
features a silly lyric where the cowboy goes on about
his worn out hat and a six string strap. It's
just the worst country kitch. It sounds like every bro
cover band since the early two thousands. If Chris Stapleton
(01:31):
was run through a database with a side of Marcus King,
it would sound vaguely like this. It also has that
annoying beat that's destroyed the rhythm of classic country. When
I did a little digging, I realized Walk My Walk
topped the digital download Country chart with only three thousand sales.
It's not number one on the Hot Country charts or
(01:54):
the Billboard streaming charts, which is all that matters, but
it does portend a scary future for artists. Tennessee recently
became the first state to outlaw the use of deep
fake technology to replicate artists. But the question is how
many artists' voices and lyrics and compositions were fed into
(02:15):
the AI to produce this Walk My Walk song. It's
a sterile product, but one that relies on flesh and
blood artists to whip up breaking rust, though it sounds
to me like the rust is already broken. Now. AI
isn't only coming for your playlist, it's trying to control
your relationships. A new dating app known ask date seekers
(02:37):
to share all kinds of personal information before pairing you
with a match. Now, the AI uses your preferences and
what it knows about you to essentially play matchmaker. Users
are notified when the match faker finds them a potential date.
For twenty five bucks, they'll send you the contact information
(02:58):
for your perspective partner. Tinder is now unveiling its own
AI generated dating system.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Get this.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It demands access to the user's camera role. According to
The New York Times, based on what it finds there,
it will match you with a possible partner. I wonder
who it matches to. Those people who just take pictures
of their food a waiter, But who do they match
them with. I have visions of them sidling up to
the bar and finding a pot roast with a side
(03:27):
of homeless enjoy your companion's sister. How about those cosplay people?
They might end up with digital anime partners and just
bring this thing full circle. Isn't it easier to just
take a chance and ask somebody out for a drink
or coffee? Why forfeit your personal data to a corporation
for the possibility of love? When joining a gym or
(03:50):
a professional club, or going to a church event or
out with friends could help you find a match in
real life, and they won't even ask to see those
embarrassing selfies were shots of that family trip to Cancun.
This is probably the most disturbing of all the AI stories,
just to totally divorce us from any semblance of reality.
(04:12):
Channel four in Britain just released a documentary about AI
taking people's jobs.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
AI is going to touch everybody's lives in the next
few years, and for some it will take their jobs
courth enter workers, customer service agents, maybe even TV presenters
like me, because I'm not real in a British TV first,
I'm actually an AI presenter.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You can at my job, lady. I hope every network
embraces these AI on air replacements because there's something they
can never bring to the table that some of us
can humanity, humor, anger, joy, a human understanding. The follow up,
you can have your AI music and dating and anchors.
(05:03):
I'll settle for the og versions, flaws and all. They're
much more entertaining, moving and engaging than anything the algorithm
can create. Create, create, create, Just kidding something AI probably
won't master anytime soon kidding Now to our deep dive.
They call Cordia Harrington the bun Lady. She founded the
(05:26):
bakery companies that bakes products for McDonald's Sarah Lee Pepperidge Farms.
The companies create more than one hundred million dollars a
year in revenue. But she didn't start there. How Harrington
rose from a single mother with three kids to one
of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the country is
(05:47):
a tale with a lot of lessons. Here's Cordia Harrington. Cordia,
you said something I read recently where you claim a
recession is the best time to start a business. Why
what this is counterintuitive?
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Well, honestly, if you think about it, that's the time
because when anytime you start a business, you're going to
make mistakes. Start it in the recession and then it'll
just build as the economy comes back.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Wow, is that what's behind that thought? You've done that
a few times in your own.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Life in fact, but Raymond, I didn't know I was
doing that.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It was by accident. All three businesses that I've started.
If you look at the financials for the US, we've
had nineteen recessions and nineteen recoveries and.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You keep a chart in your office.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Well, no, I was on the Federal Reserve Board.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That's why.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
That's when I learned it.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And I looked at that chart and lo and behold
every one of my business that I started where it
was in the middle of a recession, but.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
I didn't know it at the time.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you think it helps?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I think depending upon what the segment is for me,
it helped because if you think about it, you know
McDonald's restaurants.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
People can't afford to go to fine dining.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
If you're in a recession, you know they're going to
come eat delicious McDonald's instead.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, I love that. Okay, tell me what do you say?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And we hear this a lot people feel, I think,
particularly in this economy and now young people, and I
talk to them a lot that you do. They've been
trained to be very polite, or they just don't know
a lot, as none of us do when we're younger,
and they give up so easily. What do you say
to people who back off when they're told no?
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Raymond?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I believe that if we have that thought process, I
believe it comes from God that we should try to
do something, then we should not take no. For an answer,
because that little voice inside of us is a true north.
And for example, I knew I needed to become a
(07:57):
baker from McDonald's. I was told no thirty one times,
and I kept asking, and I'd go ask somebody else,
and I'd go to a different interview because I knew
in my heart that that was for me. It would
give me the chance to have a great business and
spend more time with my kids, which was my driving force.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And I want to go back. I want to take
you back to nineteen eighty one. You're in your twenties
and you start a real estate business, and this is
like you're putting everything you got into the signs in
a little rented.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Desks, all six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Wow, why real estate? Why did you start there?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Because I got frustrated. I had a real estate license
and I was sort of doing it on the side,
and I wanted to buy a piece of property, but
they wanted me to pay the listing and sales commission
to the agency. I thought, well, that's ridiculous. I'll just
start my own. I'll be the agent they bartered for
(08:57):
my office with the doctor in town. I had an
empty mall and then I.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Leased my chairs and desks.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
My chairs were a dollar fifty a month and my
desk were three dollars a month, and I opened the
doors and I was in the real estate business. And truly,
the whole six hundred dollars I had was to buy
signs and it grew, and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
But in nineteen eighty six, you have your children, your
single mom, yes, and you're looking to work hard, obviously
for your family, but you want to spend more time
with them.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
That was the driving force for all of my businesses
all along. How can I make money and spend more
time with my kids? And so that's when I sold
a house to the McDonald's owners that came to town.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
I learned that you could own a McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Well, I didn't grow up, you know, I were my
cousins had me downs the first of a family to
go to college, so I didn't know you could own one.
And I saw their lifestyle Raymond. They were with their
kids all weekend, they were on the lake. They drove
a nice car.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I thought, I can do that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
This is us.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
But that took a while to number one get the interview.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Back in that day, they would get in a year,
fifty to sixty thousand applicants for one hundred openings.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
To buy a franchise, to buy.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
A franchise, because it was the golden ticket back then,
and McDonald's did a great job of making so many normal,
hard working people very wealthy.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, but you had to undergo training. I mean there
were thousands of hours of training.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Yes, about twenty two hundred hours where I worked for free,
so I would sell real estate and then I would
get up.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
I had a college gal that would.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Come spend the night at my house, and literally as
I was driving down the interstate because they had me
train in Little Rock, which is about an hour and
fifteen minutes away, tears would.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Be streaming down my face and.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
I would think, you know what am I doing. I'm
driving into the dawn. I'm leaving my kids behind, you know.
I just but I knew I had to do it
because owning a McDonald's would give me time with my children.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh but it's not as easy as Okay, I'm going
to buy a McDonald's. Then you have to apply for one,
which I didn't realize.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
You had just fly.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
You go through training, twenty two hours of training, which
means you work every position in the restaurant, which is.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
A great thing. Yeah, you've carried in for your other businesses.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Absolutely best training any young person can get.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Where you get a McDonald Wow. So you get the training.
You have a little money from your real estate business.
What happens at this point.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Well, I was given the chance to buy the Effingham,
Illinois McDonald's.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
And I love that little town. It reminded me of
my town, Russellville, which I didn't want to leave.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
But I drove. I had a fruit truck that had
my furniture. I borrowed on a handshake the guy that
had been banking me, Charlie Blanchard. The banker gave me
a loan on my signature for two hundred and fifty thousand.
I had two hundred thousand. That made the down payment
(12:16):
a million, six fifties when I paid for my first store,
and I drove in a fruit truck, moved into russell
and moved into every camp and bought the first McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But it didn't go as you plan. Okay, I mean
you don't have any customers. It's a little it's a
sweet little town. I know people there. Yes, you did,
but it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Was not the biggest problem.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I didn't realize that the seller had eight kids that
were the supervisor's store manager first, so it.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Was a sanding.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
I got the keys with me and Terry and Mary,
and between Terry and Mary, they may have had a
full setite. We're the only ones that knew how to
count the drawers, and so it was not the lifestyle
that I expected. I lived in a rent house, one
of those houses that when the kids would flush the
(13:14):
toilet and all the cold water would go away, and
mother would scream me when I'm in the shower, like.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's called yeah, one line for the whole house. But
the people just didn't show up. I mean, you had
a very small traffic at that store, which is on
an interstate.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Well it is on an interstate, and thankfully the community
supported it. But I learned that back then we had
CBE radios and I could do a CBE Hey, good,
good buddy, if you'll stop your bus, I'll give you
a free meal if you bring your people.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Well, the buses started stopping.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And then I got the idea, maybe I should buy
the Grayhound bus franchise.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
So I did put it on my parking.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Lot eighty eight bus the day we were one of
the top forty in the US as far as sales.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Unbelievable, I mean so grateful. I am amazed at your tenacity.
You really do.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Never give up.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Survival is a great motivator all that.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I know it.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I know it firsthand.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
So you build these franchises, you end up buying two
bill twomore. Yeah, how do you end up on what
is called the McDonald's run committee and what is that?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Okay, the men in my co op, I was the
only woman.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Huh, it said, Oh, we'll put you on the fun committee.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Get it to kind of it's a joke. Well, I
loved it.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
I would get First of all, I never got out
of my restaurants because I was constantly trying to hire
a train and all that. So four times a year
I would get to go to see another to see
the bakery, to work on a priceing protocol, and I
learned about global.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
McDonald's, which was, oh my gosh. I was so excited.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Sesame seeds and Guatemala flower prices in Russia. I learned
so much. And I would come back to give my
report and I'd go and then we and they'd go
you know, okay enough. And then I learned that McDonald's
wanted diversity in their supply chain. And the minute I
(15:27):
heard it, I knew that was for me. I needed
to become their diverse baker. And I started making phone
calls and creating interviews, and I went to Tea Topolis,
which is right next to E Fie Cam to the
flour mill. Steamer Flour Milling, were my white outfit. Stood
in front of the flour mill with a cardinal baseball
(15:50):
Hall of Fame baseball, and I took my picture and
I said, I want to be your Hall of Fame
baker and sent that to McDonald's with the baseball.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I mean, I did this for four years.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Of course, did you know how to bake?
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Oh no, no.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No, isn't that kind.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Of a prerectly didn't know how to bake, but I
knew I could find the bank.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You could know the bakery, and you knew they could
do it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And you also knew the specs because at that time
and today McDonald's is very precious about their bun and
the loft.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And the they are so particular thirty eight characteristics for
every bun Raymond, they used the highest quality, the best
products they can.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So what broke through? When did they finally relent?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
It was January of ninety six, and truly that was
my like my thirty first interview, And.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
When I finally got the nod, I cannot tell you
how excited I was.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
And they needed the bakery to be built somewhere between
Saint Louis and Paducah, Kentucky and Memphis because the market
that I was going to serve was the So I had,
along the way with the bakery committee, been all over
the world looking at McDonald's bakeries and setups, and I
(17:11):
saw something in Europe that was really smart. They put
the bakery right next door to the distribution center so
the baker didn't have to have trucks, and I thought,
I'm going to do that. So there was a DC
a distribution center in Dixon, and we built that bakery
right next door so we could open our doors and
(17:33):
the buns would go flow.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Through and they would deliver them on the truck.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
So we opened in April of ninety seven. We broke
around in June of ninety six.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
What was the lesson for you? What's the lesson for others?
Watching and listening.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
I believe that through prayer we get nods of things
we should do, and when we know it's something we
should do, we don't stop. Figure were resourceful, creative. We
just go for it because no is not an option.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Wow, and it's going to be hard though.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I mean the risk you have met myself to sleep
a few nights, right, How many nights were you up?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Is my question?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I mean you had a lot because you sell the
McDonald franchises, right, not yet, I.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Without going into a lot of detail, if you look
at that chart, the bakery opened at the bottom of recession,
and what happened is same store sales for McDonald's dip
thirty eight percent, which means buns did so I only
had twenty two hours of production. You needed forty to
(18:44):
keep people and all of that. So I was lucky
enough to get to keep my restaurants during the time
of the building of the bakery.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
I sold them after the bakery was felt.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Wow, and then you you really just scale this up
because McDonald's was very precious about you can only serve us.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You are exactly right, You were exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Right, broke the mold.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Well, we didn't have a choice, like I told you earlier.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Survival is a great motivator, and we had to figure
out how to put volume in the plant so that
we could pay the people, pay the bills.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Well, when I sold my restaurants, every.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Penny of that went in the what oops account what
if we need it? And over time I use that
money every month to pay payroll. Finally, Pepperidge Farm, God
bless their soul, gave me an account, gave our business
an account to sell all the buns for KFC. It
(19:49):
was Pepperage branded bun and McDonald's was gracious to allow us.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
My husband came up with a beautiful price protocol which
benefited McDonald's operators, and we took off.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wow, I'm so greatable.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I mean it's really expanded. That was one bakery and
then you build out two and then.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Bought one and now we've got nine and twenty seven
hundred employees and we are so grateful.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Do you how immersed do you get in the in
each step of the process, I mean early on, how
immersed were you?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well, you have to wear every hat because the great
model that I learned from McDonald's restaurants was that if
you know every single detail about how the operations work.
Then when you're walking by in a glance, you know
if things are right. So we took that same approach
with the bakeries. We learned every single area of the
(20:50):
bakery so that we could walk by and know if
it was right or wrong, or we could help somebody learn.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You consider this a ministry.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Well, we have three create opportunities, make a difference and
impact lives, and we have tried to live that motto,
to teach that to our every associate, because if we
take care of them, they'll take care of our customer.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
If we help them succeed, whether.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
They're just with us a short time and they go
to law school or whether they stay with us for
a career, then we're all blessed.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We're benefiting one and it remains a family business.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
It is we have. We're grateful.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I mean, you've got your family involved.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yes, yes, we've got a lot of family involved.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
But our we're capital from Chicago got involved with us
in twenty and nineteen, three months before COVID.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Well?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And seriously plan it? I didn't plan it. It was
a real god thing because we were at an Aba convention,
American Baker Association convention.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
Were five hundred people in the room, and.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
See it next to you, Greg Purcell. Well, we hit
it off and we started talking about the industry and
I was getting ready to build a new bakery. And
he looked at me and he said, why don't you
grow with my money in the stead of yours?
Speaker 5 (22:12):
And I'm like, what do you mean.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Grow with your money? He flew down the next week.
We talked in Nashville. I flew up to Chicago the
next week and sixty seven days later what we had
written on a napkin closed with not one change.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
It was totally divine intervention.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And they are the finest people and have brought courage
and talent and funds. And today we're about six times
bigger than we were, and we were pretty big.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Wow, and I've met the.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Most You know, when you have that kind of resources,
we were a boots for a business. All of a sudden,
you can go, that is the best engineer in the world.
We're going to hire him and pay him what he's worth. Well,
you can't think like that when you're.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Spending your You're to death.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
You're going to make your payments. You know it's a
whole different mindset.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Wow, but it's really a lot great to scale and
build in a way you couldn't have imagined.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Beyond my wellness. I mean yeah, I think we're rated
the third largest bakery in the US.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Who do you service, Cordya, Who tell me the brands
because people will be shocked.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
I mean, well, we're a comand and what that means
is we don't have a brand. So Crown Bakeries does
not have a brand. But our great customers include McDonald's
and Burger King and Trader Joe's and Whole food Stand,
five Guys and over two thousand brands that you would recognize,
including Pepperidge Farm, Sarah Lee and those.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
And these are all separate models, if you will, of pastmers.
They're not I mean, you don't use one bun for
the other.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, all of the all of
the formulas are different, and they're they're highly protected. In
our computer system. We're very automated. One plant we make
a thousand buns a minute. Another one we make two
thousand croissants a minute.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
So if you go and.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Have breakfast at Burger King and you have that croissant,
anywhere in the United States.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
We've made it.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Really, that's incredible, so fun. Tell me about your leadership style.
It's hard when you're working with family. Let's just say it.
It can be hard. Yeah, how do you negotiate that?
Because when you have a disagreement, well, I've.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Made every possible mistake. I will start with that. And
we've come up with the term MAC MAC that is
a mature adult conversation. So when we have an issue
within the family, we call each other within twenty four
hours and ago we need to have a MAC. And
(24:55):
then the tone is set that you can speak your truth,
but you've laid.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
It out in a way that it's not as.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Personal, you know, because we've hurt feelings a lot at
different times and you don't mean to, but.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So it puts it in a separate It's like say
by and taking it out of the personal family at.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Emotional correct correct?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What would you tell those who I mean, I was
struck by the fact that you founded your first bakery
at forty three years old, which is hardly old.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Hey, but it sounds really young right now, me.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Too, exactly to me too.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So but the question is what would you say to
people who say, you know, I'm fifty ghost.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
There is nothing that every memory, every dream, every mistake,
it's all within me. And I'm so grateful for those memories.
And it wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have given
it a shot.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
What was the hardest moment in this journey for you?
What was the gut check most difficult? I can't do
this moment.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Hurting a family member was gut riching, and I did
that and I regret it.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
That was one thing.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
The crisis of this is within the bakery. For example,
we were going to be a national rollout for a
new bun and I built a line in Nashville put
in a three and a half million.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Dollars spiral freezer.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
On the week of rollout when McDonald's was here watching
us roll out, I got to call at five in
the morning and Hey, I just Dave called me and said, I.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Just want you to know nobody's dead. And I'm like what.
The spiral freezer had collapsed.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
And so not only was it great nobody's hurt, but
we had eleven distributions center around the United States that
we're counting on us, and I've got planes in the
air bringing parts. I'm calling everybody I know. You know
it's your reputation, it's not. I mean we we've always
(27:14):
one hundred percent delivered every order that we've had until
that point, and so it was it was horrible.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, but you got through it. It rebuilds it.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
So just have to plow through it.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
That's a lot easier than hurting somebody's feelings, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You just got to fix it. Those harder things to rebuild. Yeah,
over time. What's the key to your success? If you
have to say this is it? This is what made
the bun Lady the bun Lady.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
And I love that Moniker by the way, thank you.
I think.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Passion and enthusiasm, honest enthusiasm for what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I absolutely love what I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I love creating opportunities for other people. I love connecting people.
I love helping you reach your dreams. So I think
enthusiasm and passion.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Do you still have a passion for making buns, for
making pastries, for making these big goods that still burns
in you all this time later?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
It really does, not because of the product, but because
of what it does to the person that's able to
overcome and make it happen.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Is that the key to focus on the people you're serving,
totally beyond the thing, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Yep, what do you tell women? Women have a tough time.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Because they're up against so many societal obstacles, pressures. I mean,
and though some walls have come down.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I think I think that whether it's a woman or
a man, you've got to tell them to live their dream.
And I'm often asked, how do you balance work and
you know, keeping your head. Well, I have a secret
and it's called on my calendar. I have his historic
preservation and it's once a week for two hours, I
(29:04):
get a massage and this.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
This historic preservation facial.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I thought, Oh, she's rebuilding the house.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
She's fixing the historic out front, I guess.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And so it's that time to pause and just get
your downtime, take care of yourself so that you can
be your best self with your family and with your associates.
I'm not always my best self and it's ugly and
I like to try to preserve.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, we all end up there, I mean, you know,
and that balance is helps me. And when you have obligations,
particularly use a single mother. I mean, this is a
you took major risks.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
You didn't feel like that at the time. It just
felt like what I had to do.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You know, if I do this, then I'll have more
time with them, and.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
So it's worth it. It was no brainer.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Amazing. No, I'm a marvel at that journey, just the
way it transpired. But risk takers. There are some people
who are just great risk takers. You're one of those people.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That's hard.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I mean, not everybody can do that, and it may
be frame of mind. You know, some people do not
a spite, I will beat the other guy. You didn't
do that, that wasn't your motivator, No, which I love.
There's some questions I ask everybody when we do this. Okay,
what's that there? This is my Royal Grande questionnaire. Do
not think deeply, just answer, who's the person you most respect?
Speaker 4 (30:43):
My husband Tom, He's the most honest, straightforward, funny, genuine
person on the planet.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Who's the person you most despise?
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Wow, that's hard. Yeah, I know, Well I can't. I
really I don't think. I don't think like that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You don't hate people, you don't just frise anybody.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
I can't. I'm blank.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, Well that's only because I'm sitting in the room.
Otherwise you would have said me, I know. But what's
your best feature?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
My hair, it is a great feature.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
What's your worst feature? Oh?
Speaker 5 (31:22):
My body?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Do you have a Do you have a best or
worst feature in business?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
My best feature in business is being an encourager and
you know, finding good things in the situation. My worst
feature is managing because I am a yes you know,
I'm always seeing the way we can say yes.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And when you're managing people, I.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Think you need to be able to say no, that's
not what we're going to do right now, we are
going to do this. So I would say managing people,
managing the day to day people operation.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I read somewhere where you like to take everybody's opinion,
but they all know at the end of the day,
it's gonna be me. Yeah, I'm going to make the decision.
Does And that's a great I mean, well I do.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
I know.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
I've got blind sides and sites, and it's very helpful
when I can see other people's.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Point of view because maybe it's something I haven't thought about.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
What is your favorite book and the last great book
you read?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
I read about five books a week.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
What are you reading now.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I just started a book this morning. It's the new
Brown book.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I don't remember the name of it, Easy Ready.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
And I love reading my Bible. I a lot of
self help books.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I'm a passionate reader.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
You're a reader.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
I love to read. Yeah, I escape when I read.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I know the feeling. What do you fear?
Speaker 4 (33:01):
I always feared I'd go broke right before my eyes.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
I thought that was going to happen several times.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, I've I've seen your stories where you start
a business and suddenly the entire pool drives.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Over exactly, So I think that that's the first thing
that came to my mind.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Don't feel that so much today.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
But what's the greatest virtue in your mind?
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Integrity?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Do you see enough of it in the business world.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I think those that I surround myself with have very
high integrity.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
When somebody doesn't.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
You can't do business.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
We go along.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
What do you regret? Do you have a deep regret?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I do I regret parting ways with my brother on
a business venture?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Hm?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Have you been able to reconcile totally? Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Good, totally.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Well, then that's not that's not a deep, deep regret.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I mean it's it was painful.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Well, it's always painful, but you did you did the
important thing, which is yes, I'm grateful for that. Tell me,
what is the word you cannot live without?
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Awesome?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
That's a nice one. If you could live anywhere but Nashville,
where you live? Now? Where would you live?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Naples, Florida, Fort nomm Marmy, Italy, Queenstown.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
New Zealand, Osaka, Japan?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I love You've got a whole list. I called Japan
of all the places?
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Well, what ties you all? Piki mosk CONSI I die.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You spent a lot of time there.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
I live there as.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
An exchange student. It was a great experience. My first
plane ride was to Japan.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
That's a college student.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And you would you would move there?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
I love it?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Love it. Have you spent a time there?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Been there once?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
But oh you have to go spend time there? Great people.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
What's the best advice you ever received?
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Be yourself even when it's uncomfortable. And I'm going to
tell you a story Jim Brady. When I was interviewing
to be a baker, he wrote some of the senior
leadership at McDonald's and he said, She's going to come
across really excited and enthusiastic, but she's.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Smart too, in other words, not a bimbo.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And so.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I think it's not easy when people are excited about things.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
You know, you've just got to be yourself and it'll
all work out.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
And it does, it does, and it does.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
If you could not do what you're doing now, what
would you do?
Speaker 5 (35:53):
If I could not do what I'm doing now?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
What would I do?
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Boy?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I think I would organize women trying to get into
business on group trips so they can learn for one another.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Huh, and see other examples of successful entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yes, that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
You're you're you're a born entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I mean that's that's where as you look at this life,
you're like, there's always something that you're called to.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And I do think entrepreneurship you're called to.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Side I'm one hundred percent in agreement. I think you
are born with it, and and it's it's it's who
you are, it's a part of you. For years, Raymond,
I used to hope I would I would literally pray
that I could just be satisfied, because I was never satisfied.
And then I got involved with YPO Young President, and
(36:50):
I realized all it was.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Is just a bunch of entrepreneurs, that that's just who
we are. Never satisfied.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Got to rearrange things a little, got to get the restaurant,
see you want, you know, I mean, just crazy little stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
It's a little thing.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
It's a disease, but it's.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
A disease that many people thrive from, and it's really needed.
It's the engine that moves humanity in many ways. Tell
me about Ray Kroc. There was an article I read
where you mentioned Ray Kroc and how old he was
when he founded McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I didn't realize that story.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Fifty five years old when he bought his first McDonald's
from the McDonald brothers, and he went on. And his
model is very biblical in my mind because he really
gave people opportunities to become all that they could be.
And when people are saying, well i'm too old to
(37:44):
start with something, No, no, we're not too old.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
No, you've stopped listening, right listening?
Speaker 5 (37:51):
Want to be all that God made you to be.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
What happens when this is over, Well, I'm.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Sure there'll be another trip to plan or project to do.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
And you know, we really do try to use these
opportunities in business as a ministry.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
So I think it'll be a pretty smooth.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Transition where we continue to try to you know, invest
in people, invest in, not monetarily, but.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
I mean invest in who they are, invest in helping
them be successful.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, you know, I love that question. It's always my
last question because everybody takes it differently. I asked a
musician the other day what happens when this is over?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
He thought music. I asked you, and you thought business.
I'm thinking the big over, this is over, heaven.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I can't wait, need too, And I hope the buns
are as good as the ones you bake.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well that's all that will leave it there. You're so great,
thank you, so so much.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Great to me.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Here's the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Cordea Harrington was forty three years old when she sold
for McDonald's franchises and took out a fifteen million dollar
loan to found the original Tennessee bun company that grew
into the bakery companies. She was willing to take enormous
risks on herself when asked where she got the gumption
to do that at forty three years old, She mentioned
(39:21):
Ray Kroc, who founded McDonald's at fifty two years old.
Your age doesn't matter, she said, it's energy and determination.
Her devotion to building her business, whatever it took, is inspiring,
as is she delighted to spend some time with Cordia
and to bring her to you, and I hope you'll
come back to Royo Grande soon. Why live a dry,
(39:43):
constricted life when if you fill it with good things,
it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm
Raymond Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe like this episode, Thanks
for diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo
Grande is produced in partnership with DP Studios and iHeart Podcasts,
and is available on the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you get
(40:06):
your podcasts
If you've ever eaten at MacDonald's, Burger King or five Guys,
chances are you've had one of her buns. They call
it the bun Lady, But the story of how a
single mother rose to the top of the Forbes list
of richest self made women in America is one of
grit and confidence. You have to hear. Cordia Harrington is
my guest on this edition of A Royal Grande. Come on,
(00:33):
I'm Raymond Arroyo. Welcome to a Royal Grande. Go subscribe
to the show. Now turn the notifications on so you
know what's coming. And if you'd like to support our show,
please visit Raymondarroyo dot com. There's a donatepar there. Before
we get to the Bun Lady and her incredible business
and life lessons, let's go to the culture counter. This
(00:54):
AI thing is getting way out of control. Sitting atop
the Billboard's Country Digital Song chart is someone who doesn't exist,
breaking rust. The artist is entirely AI generated.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
He may look like a.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Cowboy, but he's just as fake as the song generated
by the machine. Walk My Walk. The song in question
features a silly lyric where the cowboy goes on about
his worn out hat and a six string strap. It's
just the worst country kitch. It sounds like every bro
cover band since the early two thousands. If Chris Stapleton
(01:31):
was run through a database with a side of Marcus King,
it would sound vaguely like this. It also has that
annoying beat that's destroyed the rhythm of classic country. When
I did a little digging, I realized Walk My Walk
topped the digital download Country chart with only three thousand sales.
It's not number one on the Hot Country charts or
(01:54):
the Billboard streaming charts, which is all that matters, but
it does portend a scary future for artists. Tennessee recently
became the first state to outlaw the use of deep
fake technology to replicate artists. But the question is how
many artists' voices and lyrics and compositions were fed into
(02:15):
the AI to produce this Walk My Walk song. It's
a sterile product, but one that relies on flesh and
blood artists to whip up breaking rust, though it sounds
to me like the rust is already broken. Now. AI
isn't only coming for your playlist, it's trying to control
your relationships. A new dating app known ask date seekers
(02:37):
to share all kinds of personal information before pairing you
with a match. Now, the AI uses your preferences and
what it knows about you to essentially play matchmaker. Users
are notified when the match faker finds them a potential date.
For twenty five bucks, they'll send you the contact information
(02:58):
for your perspective partner. Tinder is now unveiling its own
AI generated dating system.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Get this.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
It demands access to the user's camera role. According to
The New York Times, based on what it finds there,
it will match you with a possible partner. I wonder
who it matches to. Those people who just take pictures
of their food a waiter, But who do they match
them with. I have visions of them sidling up to
the bar and finding a pot roast with a side
(03:27):
of homeless enjoy your companion's sister. How about those cosplay people?
They might end up with digital anime partners and just
bring this thing full circle. Isn't it easier to just
take a chance and ask somebody out for a drink
or coffee? Why forfeit your personal data to a corporation
for the possibility of love? When joining a gym or
(03:50):
a professional club, or going to a church event or
out with friends could help you find a match in
real life, and they won't even ask to see those
embarrassing selfies were shots of that family trip to Cancun.
This is probably the most disturbing of all the AI stories,
just to totally divorce us from any semblance of reality.
(04:12):
Channel four in Britain just released a documentary about AI
taking people's jobs.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
AI is going to touch everybody's lives in the next
few years, and for some it will take their jobs
courth enter workers, customer service agents, maybe even TV presenters
like me, because I'm not real in a British TV first,
I'm actually an AI presenter.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You can at my job, lady. I hope every network
embraces these AI on air replacements because there's something they
can never bring to the table that some of us
can humanity, humor, anger, joy, a human understanding. The follow up,
you can have your AI music and dating and anchors.
(05:03):
I'll settle for the og versions, flaws and all. They're
much more entertaining, moving and engaging than anything the algorithm
can create. Create, create, create, Just kidding something AI probably
won't master anytime soon kidding Now to our deep dive.
They call Cordia Harrington the bun Lady. She founded the
(05:26):
bakery companies that bakes products for McDonald's Sarah Lee Pepperidge Farms.
The companies create more than one hundred million dollars a
year in revenue. But she didn't start there. How Harrington
rose from a single mother with three kids to one
of the most successful female entrepreneurs in the country is
(05:47):
a tale with a lot of lessons. Here's Cordia Harrington. Cordia,
you said something I read recently where you claim a
recession is the best time to start a business. Why
what this is counterintuitive?
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Well, honestly, if you think about it, that's the time
because when anytime you start a business, you're going to
make mistakes. Start it in the recession and then it'll
just build as the economy comes back.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
Wow, is that what's behind that thought? You've done that
a few times in your own.
Speaker 5 (06:21):
Life in fact, but Raymond, I didn't know I was
doing that.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
It was by accident. All three businesses that I've started.
If you look at the financials for the US, we've
had nineteen recessions and nineteen recoveries and.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
You keep a chart in your office.
Speaker 5 (06:39):
Well, no, I was on the Federal Reserve Board.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
That's why.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
That's when I learned it.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
And I looked at that chart and lo and behold
every one of my business that I started where it
was in the middle of a recession, but.
Speaker 5 (06:51):
I didn't know it at the time.
Speaker 2 (06:53):
Do you think it helps?
Speaker 4 (06:55):
I think depending upon what the segment is for me,
it helped because if you think about it, you know
McDonald's restaurants.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
People can't afford to go to fine dining.
Speaker 4 (07:06):
If you're in a recession, you know they're going to
come eat delicious McDonald's instead.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Yeah, I love that. Okay, tell me what do you say?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
And we hear this a lot people feel, I think,
particularly in this economy and now young people, and I
talk to them a lot that you do. They've been
trained to be very polite, or they just don't know
a lot, as none of us do when we're younger,
and they give up so easily. What do you say
to people who back off when they're told no?
Speaker 5 (07:36):
Raymond?
Speaker 4 (07:37):
I believe that if we have that thought process, I
believe it comes from God that we should try to
do something, then we should not take no. For an answer,
because that little voice inside of us is a true north.
And for example, I knew I needed to become a
(07:57):
baker from McDonald's. I was told no thirty one times,
and I kept asking, and I'd go ask somebody else,
and I'd go to a different interview because I knew
in my heart that that was for me. It would
give me the chance to have a great business and
spend more time with my kids, which was my driving force.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
And I want to go back. I want to take
you back to nineteen eighty one. You're in your twenties
and you start a real estate business, and this is
like you're putting everything you got into the signs in
a little rented.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
Desks, all six hundred dollars.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
Wow, why real estate? Why did you start there?
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Because I got frustrated. I had a real estate license
and I was sort of doing it on the side,
and I wanted to buy a piece of property, but
they wanted me to pay the listing and sales commission
to the agency. I thought, well, that's ridiculous. I'll just
start my own. I'll be the agent they bartered for
(08:57):
my office with the doctor in town. I had an
empty mall and then I.
Speaker 5 (09:03):
Leased my chairs and desks.
Speaker 4 (09:05):
My chairs were a dollar fifty a month and my
desk were three dollars a month, and I opened the
doors and I was in the real estate business. And truly,
the whole six hundred dollars I had was to buy
signs and it grew, and I'm so grateful.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
But in nineteen eighty six, you have your children, your
single mom, yes, and you're looking to work hard, obviously
for your family, but you want to spend more time
with them.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
That was the driving force for all of my businesses
all along. How can I make money and spend more
time with my kids? And so that's when I sold
a house to the McDonald's owners that came to town.
Speaker 5 (09:46):
I learned that you could own a McDonald's.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
Well, I didn't grow up, you know, I were my
cousins had me downs the first of a family to
go to college, so I didn't know you could own one.
And I saw their lifestyle Raymond. They were with their
kids all weekend, they were on the lake. They drove
a nice car.
Speaker 5 (10:05):
I thought, I can do that.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
This is us.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
But that took a while to number one get the interview.
Speaker 4 (10:12):
Back in that day, they would get in a year,
fifty to sixty thousand applicants for one hundred openings.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
To buy a franchise, to buy.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
A franchise, because it was the golden ticket back then,
and McDonald's did a great job of making so many normal,
hard working people very wealthy.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, but you had to undergo training. I mean there
were thousands of hours of training.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
Yes, about twenty two hundred hours where I worked for free,
so I would sell real estate and then I would
get up.
Speaker 5 (10:43):
I had a college gal that would.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
Come spend the night at my house, and literally as
I was driving down the interstate because they had me
train in Little Rock, which is about an hour and
fifteen minutes away, tears would.
Speaker 5 (10:57):
Be streaming down my face and.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
I would think, you know what am I doing. I'm
driving into the dawn. I'm leaving my kids behind, you know.
I just but I knew I had to do it
because owning a McDonald's would give me time with my children.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Oh but it's not as easy as Okay, I'm going
to buy a McDonald's. Then you have to apply for one,
which I didn't realize.
Speaker 5 (11:20):
You had just fly.
Speaker 4 (11:21):
You go through training, twenty two hours of training, which
means you work every position in the restaurant, which is.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
A great thing. Yeah, you've carried in for your other businesses.
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Absolutely best training any young person can get.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Where you get a McDonald Wow. So you get the training.
You have a little money from your real estate business.
What happens at this point.
Speaker 4 (11:44):
Well, I was given the chance to buy the Effingham,
Illinois McDonald's.
Speaker 5 (11:49):
And I love that little town. It reminded me of
my town, Russellville, which I didn't want to leave.
Speaker 4 (11:55):
But I drove. I had a fruit truck that had
my furniture. I borrowed on a handshake the guy that
had been banking me, Charlie Blanchard. The banker gave me
a loan on my signature for two hundred and fifty thousand.
I had two hundred thousand. That made the down payment
(12:16):
a million, six fifties when I paid for my first store,
and I drove in a fruit truck, moved into russell
and moved into every camp and bought the first McDonald's.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
But it didn't go as you plan. Okay, I mean
you don't have any customers. It's a little it's a
sweet little town. I know people there. Yes, you did,
but it.
Speaker 2 (12:38):
Was not the biggest problem.
Speaker 4 (12:41):
I didn't realize that the seller had eight kids that
were the supervisor's store manager first, so it.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
Was a sanding.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
I got the keys with me and Terry and Mary,
and between Terry and Mary, they may have had a
full setite. We're the only ones that knew how to
count the drawers, and so it was not the lifestyle
that I expected. I lived in a rent house, one
of those houses that when the kids would flush the
(13:14):
toilet and all the cold water would go away, and
mother would scream me when I'm in the shower, like.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
It's called yeah, one line for the whole house. But
the people just didn't show up. I mean, you had
a very small traffic at that store, which is on
an interstate.
Speaker 4 (13:32):
Well it is on an interstate, and thankfully the community
supported it. But I learned that back then we had
CBE radios and I could do a CBE Hey, good,
good buddy, if you'll stop your bus, I'll give you
a free meal if you bring your people.
Speaker 5 (13:49):
Well, the buses started stopping.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
And then I got the idea, maybe I should buy
the Grayhound bus franchise.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
So I did put it on my parking.
Speaker 4 (13:58):
Lot eighty eight bus the day we were one of
the top forty in the US as far as sales.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Unbelievable, I mean so grateful. I am amazed at your tenacity.
You really do.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Never give up.
Speaker 5 (14:14):
Survival is a great motivator all that.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
I know it.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
I know it firsthand.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
So you build these franchises, you end up buying two
bill twomore. Yeah, how do you end up on what
is called the McDonald's run committee and what is that?
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Okay, the men in my co op, I was the
only woman.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
Huh, it said, Oh, we'll put you on the fun committee.
Speaker 5 (14:38):
Get it to kind of it's a joke. Well, I
loved it.
Speaker 4 (14:43):
I would get First of all, I never got out
of my restaurants because I was constantly trying to hire
a train and all that. So four times a year
I would get to go to see another to see
the bakery, to work on a priceing protocol, and I
learned about global.
Speaker 5 (15:00):
McDonald's, which was, oh my gosh. I was so excited.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Sesame seeds and Guatemala flower prices in Russia. I learned
so much. And I would come back to give my
report and I'd go and then we and they'd go
you know, okay enough. And then I learned that McDonald's
wanted diversity in their supply chain. And the minute I
(15:27):
heard it, I knew that was for me. I needed
to become their diverse baker. And I started making phone
calls and creating interviews, and I went to Tea Topolis,
which is right next to E Fie Cam to the
flour mill. Steamer Flour Milling, were my white outfit. Stood
in front of the flour mill with a cardinal baseball
(15:50):
Hall of Fame baseball, and I took my picture and
I said, I want to be your Hall of Fame
baker and sent that to McDonald's with the baseball.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
I mean, I did this for four years.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
Of course, did you know how to bake?
Speaker 5 (16:04):
Oh no, no.
Speaker 2 (16:05):
No, isn't that kind.
Speaker 4 (16:07):
Of a prerectly didn't know how to bake, but I
knew I could find the bank.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
You could know the bakery, and you knew they could
do it.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
And you also knew the specs because at that time
and today McDonald's is very precious about their bun and
the loft.
Speaker 4 (16:21):
And the they are so particular thirty eight characteristics for
every bun Raymond, they used the highest quality, the best
products they can.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So what broke through? When did they finally relent?
Speaker 4 (16:36):
It was January of ninety six, and truly that was
my like my thirty first interview, And.
Speaker 5 (16:45):
When I finally got the nod, I cannot tell you
how excited I was.
Speaker 4 (16:50):
And they needed the bakery to be built somewhere between
Saint Louis and Paducah, Kentucky and Memphis because the market
that I was going to serve was the So I had,
along the way with the bakery committee, been all over
the world looking at McDonald's bakeries and setups, and I
(17:11):
saw something in Europe that was really smart. They put
the bakery right next door to the distribution center so
the baker didn't have to have trucks, and I thought,
I'm going to do that. So there was a DC
a distribution center in Dixon, and we built that bakery
right next door so we could open our doors and
(17:33):
the buns would go flow.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
Through and they would deliver them on the truck.
Speaker 4 (17:37):
So we opened in April of ninety seven. We broke
around in June of ninety six.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
What was the lesson for you? What's the lesson for others?
Watching and listening.
Speaker 4 (17:48):
I believe that through prayer we get nods of things
we should do, and when we know it's something we
should do, we don't stop. Figure were resourceful, creative. We
just go for it because no is not an option.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
Wow, and it's going to be hard though.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I mean the risk you have met myself to sleep
a few nights, right, How many nights were you up?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Is my question?
Speaker 1 (18:17):
I mean you had a lot because you sell the
McDonald franchises, right, not yet, I.
Speaker 4 (18:23):
Without going into a lot of detail, if you look
at that chart, the bakery opened at the bottom of recession,
and what happened is same store sales for McDonald's dip
thirty eight percent, which means buns did so I only
had twenty two hours of production. You needed forty to
(18:44):
keep people and all of that. So I was lucky
enough to get to keep my restaurants during the time
of the building of the bakery.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
I sold them after the bakery was felt.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Wow, and then you you really just scale this up
because McDonald's was very precious about you can only serve us.
Speaker 5 (19:05):
You are exactly right, You were exactly.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Right, broke the mold.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
Well, we didn't have a choice, like I told you earlier.
Speaker 4 (19:12):
Survival is a great motivator, and we had to figure
out how to put volume in the plant so that
we could pay the people, pay the bills.
Speaker 5 (19:25):
Well, when I sold my restaurants, every.
Speaker 4 (19:28):
Penny of that went in the what oops account what
if we need it? And over time I use that
money every month to pay payroll. Finally, Pepperidge Farm, God
bless their soul, gave me an account, gave our business
an account to sell all the buns for KFC. It
(19:49):
was Pepperage branded bun and McDonald's was gracious to allow us.
Speaker 5 (19:57):
To do it.
Speaker 4 (19:57):
My husband came up with a beautiful price protocol which
benefited McDonald's operators, and we took off.
Speaker 2 (20:05):
Wow, I'm so greatable.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I mean it's really expanded. That was one bakery and
then you build out two and then.
Speaker 4 (20:12):
Bought one and now we've got nine and twenty seven
hundred employees and we are so grateful.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Do you how immersed do you get in the in
each step of the process, I mean early on, how
immersed were you?
Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well, you have to wear every hat because the great
model that I learned from McDonald's restaurants was that if
you know every single detail about how the operations work.
Then when you're walking by in a glance, you know
if things are right. So we took that same approach
with the bakeries. We learned every single area of the
(20:50):
bakery so that we could walk by and know if
it was right or wrong, or we could help somebody learn.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
You consider this a ministry.
Speaker 4 (20:59):
Well, we have three create opportunities, make a difference and
impact lives, and we have tried to live that motto,
to teach that to our every associate, because if we
take care of them, they'll take care of our customer.
Speaker 5 (21:15):
If we help them succeed, whether.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
They're just with us a short time and they go
to law school or whether they stay with us for
a career, then we're all blessed.
Speaker 1 (21:25):
We're benefiting one and it remains a family business.
Speaker 5 (21:29):
It is we have. We're grateful.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
I mean, you've got your family involved.
Speaker 5 (21:33):
Yes, yes, we've got a lot of family involved.
Speaker 4 (21:35):
But our we're capital from Chicago got involved with us
in twenty and nineteen, three months before COVID.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Why did you do that?
Speaker 5 (21:45):
Well?
Speaker 4 (21:45):
And seriously plan it? I didn't plan it. It was
a real god thing because we were at an Aba convention,
American Baker Association convention.
Speaker 5 (21:57):
Were five hundred people in the room, and.
Speaker 4 (21:59):
See it next to you, Greg Purcell. Well, we hit
it off and we started talking about the industry and
I was getting ready to build a new bakery. And
he looked at me and he said, why don't you
grow with my money in the stead of yours?
Speaker 5 (22:12):
And I'm like, what do you mean.
Speaker 4 (22:14):
Grow with your money? He flew down the next week.
We talked in Nashville. I flew up to Chicago the
next week and sixty seven days later what we had
written on a napkin closed with not one change.
Speaker 5 (22:29):
It was totally divine intervention.
Speaker 4 (22:33):
And they are the finest people and have brought courage
and talent and funds. And today we're about six times
bigger than we were, and we were pretty big.
Speaker 5 (22:44):
Wow, and I've met the.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Most You know, when you have that kind of resources,
we were a boots for a business. All of a sudden,
you can go, that is the best engineer in the world.
We're going to hire him and pay him what he's worth. Well,
you can't think like that when you're.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Spending your You're to death.
Speaker 5 (23:06):
You're going to make your payments. You know it's a
whole different mindset.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Wow, but it's really a lot great to scale and
build in a way you couldn't have imagined.
Speaker 5 (23:15):
Beyond my wellness. I mean yeah, I think we're rated
the third largest bakery in the US.
Speaker 1 (23:21):
Who do you service, Cordya, Who tell me the brands
because people will be shocked.
Speaker 4 (23:26):
I mean, well, we're a comand and what that means
is we don't have a brand. So Crown Bakeries does
not have a brand. But our great customers include McDonald's
and Burger King and Trader Joe's and Whole food Stand,
five Guys and over two thousand brands that you would recognize,
including Pepperidge Farm, Sarah Lee and those.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
And these are all separate models, if you will, of pastmers.
They're not I mean, you don't use one bun for
the other.
Speaker 4 (23:53):
No, no, no, no, no, no, all of the all of
the formulas are different, and they're they're highly protected. In
our computer system. We're very automated. One plant we make
a thousand buns a minute. Another one we make two
thousand croissants a minute.
Speaker 5 (24:10):
So if you go and.
Speaker 4 (24:11):
Have breakfast at Burger King and you have that croissant,
anywhere in the United States.
Speaker 5 (24:16):
We've made it.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Really, that's incredible, so fun. Tell me about your leadership style.
It's hard when you're working with family. Let's just say it.
It can be hard. Yeah, how do you negotiate that?
Because when you have a disagreement, well, I've.
Speaker 4 (24:33):
Made every possible mistake. I will start with that. And
we've come up with the term MAC MAC that is
a mature adult conversation. So when we have an issue
within the family, we call each other within twenty four
hours and ago we need to have a MAC. And
(24:55):
then the tone is set that you can speak your truth,
but you've laid.
Speaker 5 (25:02):
It out in a way that it's not as.
Speaker 4 (25:06):
Personal, you know, because we've hurt feelings a lot at
different times and you don't mean to, but.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
So it puts it in a separate It's like say
by and taking it out of the personal family at.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
Emotional correct correct?
Speaker 1 (25:23):
What would you tell those who I mean, I was
struck by the fact that you founded your first bakery
at forty three years old, which is hardly old.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Hey, but it sounds really young right now, me.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Too, exactly to me too.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
So but the question is what would you say to
people who say, you know, I'm fifty ghost.
Speaker 4 (25:46):
There is nothing that every memory, every dream, every mistake,
it's all within me. And I'm so grateful for those memories.
And it wouldn't have happened if I wouldn't have given
it a shot.
Speaker 1 (26:00):
What was the hardest moment in this journey for you?
What was the gut check most difficult? I can't do
this moment.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Hurting a family member was gut riching, and I did
that and I regret it.
Speaker 5 (26:15):
That was one thing.
Speaker 4 (26:17):
The crisis of this is within the bakery. For example,
we were going to be a national rollout for a
new bun and I built a line in Nashville put
in a three and a half million.
Speaker 5 (26:30):
Dollars spiral freezer.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
On the week of rollout when McDonald's was here watching
us roll out, I got to call at five in
the morning and Hey, I just Dave called me and said, I.
Speaker 5 (26:43):
Just want you to know nobody's dead. And I'm like what.
The spiral freezer had collapsed.
Speaker 4 (26:52):
And so not only was it great nobody's hurt, but
we had eleven distributions center around the United States that
we're counting on us, and I've got planes in the
air bringing parts. I'm calling everybody I know. You know
it's your reputation, it's not. I mean we we've always
(27:14):
one hundred percent delivered every order that we've had until
that point, and so it was it was horrible.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah, but you got through it. It rebuilds it.
Speaker 5 (27:24):
So just have to plow through it.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
That's a lot easier than hurting somebody's feelings, Yeah, because.
Speaker 1 (27:30):
You just got to fix it. Those harder things to rebuild. Yeah,
over time. What's the key to your success? If you
have to say this is it? This is what made
the bun Lady the bun Lady.
Speaker 5 (27:41):
And I love that Moniker by the way, thank you.
I think.
Speaker 4 (27:46):
Passion and enthusiasm, honest enthusiasm for what I'm doing.
Speaker 5 (27:50):
I absolutely love what I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (27:53):
I love creating opportunities for other people. I love connecting people.
I love helping you reach your dreams. So I think
enthusiasm and passion.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
Do you still have a passion for making buns, for
making pastries, for making these big goods that still burns
in you all this time later?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
It really does, not because of the product, but because
of what it does to the person that's able to
overcome and make it happen.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Is that the key to focus on the people you're serving,
totally beyond the thing, whatever it is.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
Yep, what do you tell women? Women have a tough time.
Speaker 1 (28:33):
Because they're up against so many societal obstacles, pressures. I mean,
and though some walls have come down.
Speaker 4 (28:40):
I think I think that whether it's a woman or
a man, you've got to tell them to live their dream.
And I'm often asked, how do you balance work and
you know, keeping your head. Well, I have a secret
and it's called on my calendar. I have his historic
preservation and it's once a week for two hours, I
(29:04):
get a massage and this.
Speaker 5 (29:06):
This historic preservation facial.
Speaker 1 (29:10):
You know.
Speaker 2 (29:13):
I thought, Oh, she's rebuilding the house.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
She's fixing the historic out front, I guess.
Speaker 4 (29:21):
And so it's that time to pause and just get
your downtime, take care of yourself so that you can
be your best self with your family and with your associates.
I'm not always my best self and it's ugly and
I like to try to preserve.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, we all end up there, I mean, you know,
and that balance is helps me. And when you have obligations,
particularly use a single mother. I mean, this is a
you took major risks.
Speaker 5 (29:53):
You didn't feel like that at the time. It just
felt like what I had to do.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
You know, if I do this, then I'll have more
time with them, and.
Speaker 5 (30:02):
So it's worth it. It was no brainer.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
Amazing. No, I'm a marvel at that journey, just the
way it transpired. But risk takers. There are some people
who are just great risk takers. You're one of those people.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
That's hard.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
I mean, not everybody can do that, and it may
be frame of mind. You know, some people do not
a spite, I will beat the other guy. You didn't
do that, that wasn't your motivator, No, which I love.
There's some questions I ask everybody when we do this. Okay,
what's that there? This is my Royal Grande questionnaire. Do
not think deeply, just answer, who's the person you most respect?
Speaker 4 (30:43):
My husband Tom, He's the most honest, straightforward, funny, genuine
person on the planet.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
Who's the person you most despise?
Speaker 5 (30:55):
Wow, that's hard. Yeah, I know, Well I can't. I
really I don't think. I don't think like that.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
You don't hate people, you don't just frise anybody.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
I can't. I'm blank.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, Well that's only because I'm sitting in the room.
Otherwise you would have said me, I know. But what's
your best feature?
Speaker 5 (31:16):
My hair, it is a great feature.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
What's your worst feature? Oh?
Speaker 5 (31:22):
My body?
Speaker 1 (31:25):
Do you have a Do you have a best or
worst feature in business?
Speaker 5 (31:30):
Yes?
Speaker 4 (31:31):
My best feature in business is being an encourager and
you know, finding good things in the situation. My worst
feature is managing because I am a yes you know,
I'm always seeing the way we can say yes.
Speaker 5 (31:49):
And when you're managing people, I.
Speaker 4 (31:51):
Think you need to be able to say no, that's
not what we're going to do right now, we are
going to do this. So I would say managing people,
managing the day to day people operation.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
I read somewhere where you like to take everybody's opinion,
but they all know at the end of the day,
it's gonna be me. Yeah, I'm going to make the decision.
Does And that's a great I mean, well I do.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
I know.
Speaker 4 (32:14):
I've got blind sides and sites, and it's very helpful
when I can see other people's.
Speaker 5 (32:20):
Point of view because maybe it's something I haven't thought about.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
What is your favorite book and the last great book
you read?
Speaker 5 (32:28):
I read about five books a week.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
What are you reading now.
Speaker 5 (32:32):
I just started a book this morning. It's the new
Brown book.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I don't remember the name of it, Easy Ready.
Speaker 5 (32:42):
And I love reading my Bible. I a lot of
self help books.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
You know.
Speaker 5 (32:52):
I'm a passionate reader.
Speaker 1 (32:53):
You're a reader.
Speaker 5 (32:54):
I love to read. Yeah, I escape when I read.
Speaker 1 (32:56):
I know the feeling. What do you fear?
Speaker 4 (33:01):
I always feared I'd go broke right before my eyes.
Speaker 5 (33:05):
I thought that was going to happen several times.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
Yeah, yeah, I've I've seen your stories where you start
a business and suddenly the entire pool drives.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Over exactly, So I think that that's the first thing
that came to my mind.
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Don't feel that so much today.
Speaker 2 (33:22):
But what's the greatest virtue in your mind?
Speaker 5 (33:26):
Integrity?
Speaker 1 (33:29):
Do you see enough of it in the business world.
Speaker 4 (33:34):
I think those that I surround myself with have very
high integrity.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
When somebody doesn't.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
You can't do business.
Speaker 5 (33:44):
We go along.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
What do you regret? Do you have a deep regret?
Speaker 4 (33:49):
I do I regret parting ways with my brother on
a business venture?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Hm?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Hmmm.
Speaker 1 (33:58):
Have you been able to reconcile totally? Oh?
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Good, totally.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Well, then that's not that's not a deep, deep regret.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
I mean it's it was painful.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Well, it's always painful, but you did you did the
important thing, which is yes, I'm grateful for that. Tell me,
what is the word you cannot live without?
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Awesome?
Speaker 1 (34:19):
That's a nice one. If you could live anywhere but Nashville,
where you live? Now? Where would you live?
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Naples, Florida, Fort nomm Marmy, Italy, Queenstown.
Speaker 5 (34:31):
New Zealand, Osaka, Japan?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
I love You've got a whole list. I called Japan
of all the places?
Speaker 5 (34:38):
Well, what ties you all? Piki mosk CONSI I die.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
You spent a lot of time there.
Speaker 5 (34:42):
I live there as.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
An exchange student. It was a great experience. My first
plane ride was to Japan.
Speaker 1 (34:49):
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 5 (34:51):
That's a college student.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
And you would you would move there?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
I love it?
Speaker 5 (34:57):
Love it. Have you spent a time there?
Speaker 2 (34:59):
Been there once?
Speaker 5 (34:59):
But oh you have to go spend time there? Great people.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
What's the best advice you ever received?
Speaker 4 (35:06):
Be yourself even when it's uncomfortable. And I'm going to
tell you a story Jim Brady. When I was interviewing
to be a baker, he wrote some of the senior
leadership at McDonald's and he said, She's going to come
across really excited and enthusiastic, but she's.
Speaker 5 (35:25):
Smart too, in other words, not a bimbo.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
And so.
Speaker 4 (35:33):
I think it's not easy when people are excited about things.
Speaker 5 (35:39):
You know, you've just got to be yourself and it'll
all work out.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
And it does, it does, and it does.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
If you could not do what you're doing now, what
would you do?
Speaker 5 (35:53):
If I could not do what I'm doing now?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
What would I do?
Speaker 5 (35:57):
Boy?
Speaker 4 (36:00):
I think I would organize women trying to get into
business on group trips so they can learn for one another.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Huh, and see other examples of successful entrepreneurs.
Speaker 5 (36:15):
Yes, that would be fun.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
You're you're you're a born entrepreneur.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
I mean that's that's where as you look at this life,
you're like, there's always something that you're called to.
Speaker 2 (36:26):
And I do think entrepreneurship you're called to.
Speaker 4 (36:28):
Side I'm one hundred percent in agreement. I think you
are born with it, and and it's it's it's who
you are, it's a part of you. For years, Raymond,
I used to hope I would I would literally pray
that I could just be satisfied, because I was never satisfied.
And then I got involved with YPO Young President, and
(36:50):
I realized all it was.
Speaker 5 (36:52):
Is just a bunch of entrepreneurs, that that's just who
we are. Never satisfied.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Got to rearrange things a little, got to get the restaurant,
see you want, you know, I mean, just crazy little stuff.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
It's a little thing.
Speaker 5 (37:05):
It's a disease, but it's.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
A disease that many people thrive from, and it's really needed.
It's the engine that moves humanity in many ways. Tell
me about Ray Kroc. There was an article I read
where you mentioned Ray Kroc and how old he was
when he founded McDonald's.
Speaker 2 (37:21):
I didn't realize that story.
Speaker 4 (37:23):
Fifty five years old when he bought his first McDonald's
from the McDonald brothers, and he went on. And his
model is very biblical in my mind because he really
gave people opportunities to become all that they could be.
And when people are saying, well i'm too old to
(37:44):
start with something, No, no, we're not too old.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
No, you've stopped listening, right listening?
Speaker 5 (37:51):
Want to be all that God made you to be.
Speaker 1 (37:54):
What happens when this is over, Well, I'm.
Speaker 5 (38:00):
Sure there'll be another trip to plan or project to do.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
And you know, we really do try to use these
opportunities in business as a ministry.
Speaker 5 (38:14):
So I think it'll be a pretty smooth.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
Transition where we continue to try to you know, invest
in people, invest in, not monetarily, but.
Speaker 5 (38:25):
I mean invest in who they are, invest in helping
them be successful.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, you know, I love that question. It's always my
last question because everybody takes it differently. I asked a
musician the other day what happens when this is over?
Speaker 2 (38:36):
He thought music. I asked you, and you thought business.
I'm thinking the big over, this is over, heaven.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I can't wait, need too, And I hope the buns
are as good as the ones you bake.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
Well that's all that will leave it there. You're so great,
thank you, so so much.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Great to me.
Speaker 2 (38:57):
Here's the whole.
Speaker 1 (38:59):
Cordea Harrington was forty three years old when she sold
for McDonald's franchises and took out a fifteen million dollar
loan to found the original Tennessee bun company that grew
into the bakery companies. She was willing to take enormous
risks on herself when asked where she got the gumption
to do that at forty three years old, She mentioned
(39:21):
Ray Kroc, who founded McDonald's at fifty two years old.
Your age doesn't matter, she said, it's energy and determination.
Her devotion to building her business, whatever it took, is inspiring,
as is she delighted to spend some time with Cordia
and to bring her to you, and I hope you'll
come back to Royo Grande soon. Why live a dry,
(39:43):
constricted life when if you fill it with good things,
it can flow into a broad, thriving Arroyo Grande. I'm
Raymond Arroyo. Make sure you subscribe like this episode, Thanks
for diving in, and we'll see you next time. Arroyo
Grande is produced in partnership with DP Studios and iHeart Podcasts,
and is available on the iHeartRadio, Apple, wherever you get
(40:06):
your podcasts
Host
Raymond Arroyo
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