Main Line Today's Men and Women of the Year

January, 2006 Edition

Baker Industries doesn't stand out much among the other industrial buildings lining Pennsylvania Avenue just down the hill from the train station in Malvern. But walk inside, and you'll find Charlie and Louise "Weezie" Baker, two people endlessly devoted to their unique work force, and hundreds of men and women whose lives they've made better through their vision, energy and expansive love.

The concept behind the company itself is impressive from a purely business point of view: larger companies taking redundant tasks that can't be accomplished by machines and outsourcing them to Baker. What they get in return is high-quality work done by a committed team and turned around on time—often at a moment's notice.

But what many of their clients don't realize until they visit the work site is that all the Baker employees or Bakerites, as they're called have problems that make it difficult for them to fit into traditional working environments. Many live with serious medical conditions, including mental illness, epilepsy or trauma from a previous injury. Others are recovering substance abusers or ex-offenders making the transition back into mainstream society. They are challenges that, for many, would seem insurmountable. The Bakers don't see it that way, and they transfer that belief to the extended family they've created through their company.

At the center of it all is another creation of theirs— their 43-year-old son Justin, who is epileptic and has unpredictable seizures. As Justin approached adulthood in 1980, the Bakers realized standard working environments wouldn't be appropriate for him, or that companies simply wouldn't hire him. As Charles put it, "The world has trouble adjusting to someone with Justin's needs."

When they began a nationwide search for a program that would help him by accommodating his condition and providing meaningful work, they were appalled that such a thing didn't exist. In response, Charles sold the Philadelphia chemical company he owned and he and Weezie created a business of their own in their garage, with Justin as the primary employee. As other parents of adults with special needs heard about what they were doing, they asked if their children could work for the Bakers, as well.
"As it grew, more and more people came aboard," Weezie says.

The goal in the beginning was only to provide something meaningful to people who would be unlikely to find an opportunity elsewhere. But as the company grew, its goal evolved into training the workers to be employable at outside companies. That novel idea was the product of the uncanny business instincts of Charles the businessman and Weezie the housewife, who was steeped in the small business ethic of her father and husband. "You have to be inventive and creative and go out on a limb," she says.

The Bakers have done so for 25 years, with the non-profit company funded only by the income from jobs it takes on and, in a smaller percentage, by private and foundation support. They have put nearly every cent earned back into the company itself, refusing government support in the hopes of turning out workers who contribute to rather than take from—society, and because they didn't want to become entangled in state and federal red tape.

Part of that decision involved the Bakers' desire to have as much time as they needed to work with each employee, without being forced to adhere to a timeline for placement, says Baker Industries President Turk Thacher. Such flexibility is necessary, he says, because some Baker employees will never be able to work on the outside, and should have the option of staying.

Thacher was hired specifically to smooth the transition away from the Bakers' full-time management. Still, at 80 and 74 respectively, Charles and Weezie have only slightly cut their hours.

Their ability to do so at all hinges on their trust of Thacher and the rest of their team. "We're blessed with a very, very strong staff that's nowhere as old as we are," Charles says with a laugh.

Linda Kennedy, Baker's director of finance for the last 10 years, says the environment is unlike any other, and she attributes it all to her bosses. "There's a lot more heart in it than your normal number-crunching," she says. "[The Bakers] adopted these people in their hearts, and it's like a family. You just keep going because there's a need."

Looking out over the work area, Kennedy's stepdaughter, Lee, works as pro duction manager and director of marketing and has direct contact with workers of minute by minute. Seven different jobs are being done, from sealing direct-mail brochures to organizing and stuffing informational packets for financial management companies.

"It's a really cool thing we do here," she says, noting the interaction between the different types of employees. At any moment, she says, someone serving a stint of community service could be sitting between a schizophrenic and a hardened ex-offender, all of them working toward the same goal.

"It's hard for an outsider to get it," Lee says. "We're creating an environment for people to care and make the right decision. "We're just people who care, and it really comes out of the Bakers right into the air."