Dr Jeff Cornwall

This evening I had the distinct honor of introducing Cordia Harrington, founder of Tennessee Bun Company, as the kick-off keynote speaker at USASBE.
Cordia Harrington, best known as The Bun Lady, is the President and CEO of Tennessee Bun Company. Founded in 1996, Tennessee Bun Company (TBC) produces 60,000 buns an hour and supplies these to restaurants such as McDonalds, Chili’s and Pepperidge Farm. TBC is one of the most highly automated bakeries in the world, producing 1,000 buns per minute, and ships to 40 states east of the Rockies and to the Caribbean. In 1999, Harrington also opened Nashville Bun Company, a producer of English muffins for McDonalds, Sheetz, Perkins, and Wolferman’s Gourmet English Muffins. She added a Hearth line to Nashville Bun Company in 2005 to supply McDonalds and O’Charleys.
Prior to baking, she owned three highly successful McDonald’s restaurants in Illinois. Cordia’s enthusiasm and passion for her work are highly contagious and laid the foundation for her success. Cordia is a graduate of University of Arkansas, Kansai Gaidai and Osaka Japan, and Hamburger University. She has built several successful companies including real estate, fast-food restaurants and commercial bakeries from start-up.

Cordia offered humor, wisdom, and inspiration in telling her story of going from bootstrapping her real estate business through the $50 million multi-national company she operates today. If you ever get the chance to hear her speak, make sure to take advantage of it. It is rare that an entrepreneur can wow a group of academics — but, Cordia pulled it off.
At the end of her speech, Cordia was named the USASBE Woman Entrepreneur of the Year for 2008. A well deserved honor, indeed!