The Bread Bakery story begins in 1971, when 15-year-old Rick Carlson was working part-time at a Northwest bakery. As he made bread day after day, he thought to himself that there just had to be a better way. Rick dreamed of inventing a machine that could automate the process.

When a new oven was purchased at the bakery, he eagerly asked his father, Richard Carlson, to arrange to bring the old one home. He wanted to study it, take it apart and have it serve as a prototype in bringing his vision to reality. But sadly, the dream came to a tragic end just a few weeks later when Rick was struck by a car and killed while riding home from school on his bicycle.

Over the next few years, though Richard thought often about his son's idea, he lacked the time and financial resources to seriously attempt the project. But after moving to Yakima, Wash., purchasing a health food business and working with Jon, his other teenage son, in making and selling homemade bread in their store, Richard's interest in the concept was reignited.

He went straight to the drawing board, and began designing plans to build an automated bread-baking machine. Eventually, he even sold the store and devoted himself full time to the enormous endeavor. But as many years passed, setbacks grew and financial resources dwindled. Realizing he'd taken the project as far as he could, Richard finally sold the idea to the Wilkinson Baking Company.

With new energy and resources the company kept pressing toward a working solution. Realizing the need for a design that was not only commercially viable, but artistic and elegant, they turned to Herb Larson, an accomplished designer from Abbotsford, British Columbia. Within the first 24 hours after receiving the assignment, he had already conceptualized the front end of the machine, and 2 years later he delivered a working prototype that masterfully combined art and technology.

Wilkinson Baking now had a beautiful and functioning prototype. But before the bakery was ready to be taken to market there was still a lot of work to be done. The bakery had to be reliable, manufacturable, and be part of a complete commercially viable system. This task fell to engineering graduates of Walla Walla University, Jonny Ostojic and Jesse Knight.

We are not yet manufacturing on a large scale, but have reached our in-store testing phase. Our dream is to change the way bread is distributed, and to someday have that fresh bread aroma wafting from Wilkinson Bread Bakery stations in supermarkets and other locations nationwide. It's a marvel of innovation, and the culmination of more than 40 years of hard work, imagination, skill and dedication--and a boy's dream come true.