Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009 - (Page 31)

“We have to essentially re-engineer all of the production lines that are in the bakery,” she says. “We’ve had eighty-some years to do that. Then we sort of in an instant replicate that and make it better. We want to ha ve mor e automation, better .exibility , more modern technology.” A Role Model Bayles is careful to spread credit for Tasty Baking’s turnaround to her colleagues at the compan y, many of them decades-long veterans, but it was her training and experience that allo wed her to aggr essively confr ont the v enerable brand’s operational issues and nd wa ys to solve them. “What I was taught at Lehigh is that, especially in an engineering discipline you don’t necessarily , know ho w yo u’re g oing to solv e the pr oblem when you start to solve it. So that’s OK, don’t be afraid, just keep going,” says Bayles, who recalls buying Krimpets along with s weatshirts at the Lehigh Bookstore during her undergraduate days. “We kind of disse ct it: Her e’s the cause of it; maybe I could nd some information about this, and as you go along, the solution star ts to come out little bits at a time. There are some “Some little girls just ar en’t inter ested in technical areas,” Bayles says. “OK, ne , they’re going to do other things. But then ther e a re others that I think have an interest and are told they shouldn’t. That’s who you want to get to. “Then,” she adds, “there are some who have an inter est and just don’ t car e what an ybody thinks. That’s sort of like me.” Indeed, Ba yles’ in volvement in technical matters dates to her girlhood, when she developed an inter est in science and engineer ing. She pla yed with Leg os and Star Wars toys and such. Equall y impor tant, her par ents encouraged Bayles’ interests. “My father is a chemist and ne ver said to me, ‘Gee, Autumn, w hy w ould yo u be doing something as sill y as that?’ He’ d al ways be explaining stuff to me,” Bayles says. “That helped me. It wasn’t until I got to school that I start remembering people saying, ‘That’s a little w eird that yo u w ould lik e that or that yo u w ould be inter ested,’ but it was too late.” That early tendency to do her own thing has evolved, at Tasty Baking, into a willingness Tasty Fun Facts 150 ft. Tastykake’s oven is half the length of a regulation football eld (300 ft.). 1.4 million doughnuts are made every day. 250,000 pies are baked each day. 40,000 bushels of apples are used each year. 8 million peanut butter sandwiches could be made with the same amount of peanut butter that is used in Kandy Kakes in a year. “What I was taught at Lehigh is that, especially in an engineering discipline, you don’t necessarily know how you’re going to solve the problem when you start to solve it. So that’s OK, don’t be afraid, just keep going.” 4.8 million cakes, doughnuts, cookies, and pies are baked each day. The rst da y of operations in 1914, Tastykake bakers produced 100 cakes. people I’ve noticed in my career who s ay, ‘Well, gee, I don ’t know ho w, I never had to w ork on something like this, so I don’t know how to do it.’ “I don’ t h ave that pr oblem because what we were taught in school was that yo u won’t know how to solve it when you rst look at it, but you will nd a wa y to look at it, and it’ll come to you.” Bayles does not see herself as a r ole model, though she ackno wledges that w omen are underrepresented in technical positions such as the one she holds. The demands of her job are foremost on her mind, but once in a while , she says, she steps back and tries to encourage other women to pursue technical careers. Through participation in professional associations, such as the Fort Washington, Pa.-based Forum of Ex ecutive Women, which elected her its treasurer for 2008-09, she tries to set an example, especially for girls and younger women. to div e right in and tink er ar ound in the pursuit of impr ovement. And it hasn’ t g one unnoticed. Walking a visitor through Tasty’s current headquarters, Bayles bumps into company CEO Charles Pizzi, who shares immediate—and unsolicited—praise. “She’s terric—simpl y terric ,” Pizzi says. “Pr ofessionally and personall y, she’ s a leader—a true leader.” True leaders are often decisive, of course, and Bayles is no exception.When she is in vited to share which of Tastykake’s almost countless products is her fa vorite—a question many would consider akin to being ask to identify ed their favorite child—she answers swiftly. “That’s easy,” she says. “It’s the buttercream iced chocolate cream-lled cupcakes. It was my favorite when I walked in here v e years ago, and it’s still my favorite.” LU 280,000 Chocolate Juniors are baked weekly. 500,000 Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes are baked a day. 160 million 79 million Butterscotch Krimpets are made over a year. Chocolate Cupcakes are made over a year. 135,000 lbs. of sugar are used daily. The top-selling item in the entire Tastykake line of products is Peanut Butter Kandy Kakes. WINTER 2009 31

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Lehigh Bulletin - Winter 2009 Contents From the President's Desk Mailbox On Campus Research Arts & Culture Sports Teaming Up to Tackle Global Challenges Positively 4th Street A Sweet Job From the Publisher's Desk Alumni News

Alumni Bulletin - Winter 2009

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