SWEET SALVATION: JULIUS WALLS, JR., CEO OF GREYSTON BAKERY
Though some might see a conflict in running a successful business while following a steadfast spiritual path, Julius Walls, Jr., finds perfect balance. As CEO of Greyston Bakery in Yonkers, N.Y., he oversees a facility renowned equally for its cakes and for its policy of hiring the homeless and other “hard-to-employ” individuals. (The bakery was the subject of a 2004 piece on 60 Minutes.) As COO of the Greyston Foundation, Walls manages a system of organizations that offer jobs, housing, and social services to the area’s needy. He’s also a lay preacher who plans to become an ordained minister.
The Brooklyn-born Walls initially studied to become a Catholic priest at Cathedral College, before leaving to “become a businessperson, get married, and have a family.” In the early 1980s, Walls studied business at Baruch and later worked for a CPA firm. He then joined a chocolate manufacturing company, rising to vice president of operations. (During this time, he founded Sweet Roots, the only chocolate bar manufactured using exclusively African cocoa, produced by an African American, and sold primarily in the African American community.)
Walls initially viewed Greyston as a potential customer. “I came here to sell them chocolate but eventually started doing volunteer work with them.” He was especially impressed by the bakery’s plans to provide housing for people with HIV and AIDS. “I’d recently lost a sister to HIV, so that really pulled on my heart.” Greyston offered him a job as marketing consultant, which quickly turned into a full-time position. He’s been with the company 10 years.
Of all Greyston’s products, “My favorite is brownies,” Walls declares, perhaps unsurprisingly for someone with a background in chocolate. The bakery, which supplies brownies to Ben & Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs, and Stonyfield Farm, produces at least 15,000 pounds a day, an awe-inspiring image for anyone with a sweet tooth.
In addition to Greyston and his ministry, Walls currently sits on “nine or 10” community boards. His new priority is to spend more time with his children (he and his wife, Cheryl, have three). “If you take care of your family, you’ll be better able to take care of the community,” he believes. It’s a philosophy that, like much in Walls’s life, makes perfect sense.
—Marina Zogbi
ONE SMART COOKIE: DAWN CASALE
They have names like Eleanor, Minnie, Susanna, Mariella, and Giovanna. What are they? They are unique varieties of handmade, bite-sized gourmet cookies and biscotti (“Eleanor,” for example, is an almond-wafer sandwich cookie filled with dulce de leche). These special cookies are the creation of Lawrence N. Field Center for Entrepreneurship alumna Dawn Casale, who began her business, One Girl Cookies, five years ago.
Casale had always known that she would end up doing something in the culinary world (“I grew up surrounded by women who had tremendous culinary skills and in a family where cooking/baking was very communal”). Nevertheless, she began her career in retail, working after college at Neiman Marcus and later at Barneys New York. Casale left Barneys and a six-year stint as Accessories Department manager to start One Girl Cookies. The Barneys years were far from wasted, though. “Barneys was the classroom in which I learned the importance of aesthetic, the power of creativity, and the joy of indulgence,” she says.
So when Casale began her business, she thought not only of “the aromas and flavors that came from my grandmother’s kitchen” but how she would market her creations. She decided to give a human name to each cookie variety: “I chose actual girls’ names—ones evocative of a simple, romantic time and place.” She also opted for beautiful and unique packaging, antique-looking boxes decorated with ribbons and an old family photo.
Like many budding entrepreneurs, Casale began the business in a tiny apartment. “My first holiday season was quite an experience: my mom helped me bake, my friends helped me deliver, and I, of course, wondered what I had gotten myself into,” she laughs. By the second holiday season, she had orders for 700 pounds of cookies and had expanded from her own to a friend’s apartment. That’s when she decided to rent professional kitchen space, hire a baker, and meet with the staff of Baruch’s Field Center.
“I discovered the Field Center when I began looking for a loan,” she explains. “I needed to get a business plan together and sought out a resource that could help me. The center members not only helped me write a business plan but came up with projections and budgets and led me to a bank that was a good fit for my company.”
Today, One Girl Cookies continues to grow: its wholesale clients include Dean & DeLuca and Saks Fifth Avenue. In 2005 Casale and her partner/baker/husband decided to open a shop/espresso bar at 68 Dean Street in Brooklyn. “We need to let people know that we are here and that they should just come and visit,” she says welcomingly.
—Diane Harrigan
Photo of Casale by Glenda Hydler
Photo of cookie tree by Andrea Mohin/The New York Times
