Five industry leaders will be inducted into the American Society of Baking’s (ASB) Baking Hall of Fame. Tilmon F. (Tim) Brown, Yianny and George Caparos, Kenneth R. Newsome and William F. Ungashick will be honored during BakingTech 2022, scheduled for March 1-3, 2022, at the Hilton Chicago.
“Success in the baking industry depends upon knowledge, business acumen and supportive association with allied partners,” said Rowdy Brixey, chair of the ASB Baking Hall of Fame Evaluation Committee and president of Brixey Engineering, Inc. “These factors are well demonstrated by the individuals who will be inducted into the Baking Hall of Fame in 2022.”
An entrepreneur with deep corporate experience, Mr. Brown wrote a successful second act to his bakery career. During the first 35 years of his career he was with Continental Baking Co., rising from route salesman to corporate vice president and director of sales. He would later leave Continental to join Norwalk, Ohio-based New Horizons Baking Co. (NHBC). Mr. Brown spent 26 years at NHBC, leading the company from a $30 million business into a $100 million enterprise today with 455 employees at four facilities. He transitioned to chairman of the company in October 2020, giving way to his daughter, Trina J. Bediako, who is now chief executive officer. According to the ASB, Mr. Brown built his success on creating relationships with employees, vendors and customers and treating them well. In this, and in his interactions with the company’s community, he practices “servant leadership” as a matter of course, the ASB noted.
Brothers Yianny and George Caparos, meanwhile, pioneered production techniques that enabled thaw-and-serve convenience for the customers of Gold Standard Baking Co. Today, the brothers are partners in Crown Bakeries (formerly The Bakery Cos.), Nashville, Tenn., where Yianny, as president, and George, as chief development officer, have created a business built on highly automated, fast-paced, low-cost manufacture of baked foods for the mass market — croissants, biscuits, English muffins, hamburger buns, bread, bagels, Danish, cinnamon rolls, pound cake, brownies and individually wrapped items. The ASB described the brothers’ operating style as “hands-on,” having started in the family bakery business at an early age and learned side-by-side with master bakers. The brothers are active in industry associations and strongly encourage bakery education.
Mr. Newsome, CEO of the Markel Food Group, is being recognized for building the world’s largest manufacturer of wholesale bread and bun baking equipment, all within two decades. After a short period working for a leading consulting group, Mr. Newsome put together a team of local investors and in 1996 acquired AMF Bakery Systems, Richmond, Va. Other acquisitions followed, as did affiliation with Markel Corp. Under his leadership, the business grew to include international operations, too, and is now the largest US/European bakery equipment manufacturing company operating in China. The ASB said Mr. Newsome embodies the company’s corporate version — “Better food. Better lives.” — through his community activities, including youth sports, and through service as an officer of several industry associations.
Mr. Ungashick has found his way into the Baking Hall of Fame thanks to his ability to help guide the baking industry into using modern material handling technologies by applying the physics of air handling to powdered ingredients. Trained as an aeronautical engineer, Mr. Ungashick first worked for Baker Perkins in sales before founding in 1956 Shick Engineering, now Shick Esteve, Kansas City. At that time, flour was delivered in bags and dumped by hand into mixers at wholesale bakeries. But thanks to Mr. Ungashick’s ingenuity, a “baby bulk truck” was developed, allowing flour to be delivered in 20,000-lb lots. Mr. Ungashick would go on to develop other ingredient automation for the handling of bulk flour, oil, cream yeast and sugar, plus dry and liquid minor ingredients.
“The individuals we elect to the Baking Hall of Fame have earned the respect of their customers, suppliers, communities and industry,” Mr. Brixey said. “They inspire our future by their examples.”
Since launching in 2006, the Baking Hall of Fame has recognized 97 individuals from different facets of the baking industry — from bakeries, allied equipment and ingredient suppliers, schools, service organizations, and publishers.
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