Harold S. Back, Founder and President

In 1976, Back arrived penniless in the United States from South Africa and began a successful 25-year career in the development, management, financing and sale of real estate. He served as Vice President of Development with Sam Zell’s Equity Group in Chicago, and then founded Erie Development Co. in 1988 which acquired, managed and redeveloped shopping centers. Back also managed a small private investment fund and other private securities investments.

After many lucrative years at a chaotic pace, Back made good on a promise to his wife: if his business sold, she could choose where they would relocate. Scottsdale, Arizona was her choice, which prompted Back to retreat to a Trappist Monastery for a few weeks to contemplate this new chapter and setting for his life.

In 1998, Back did move to Scottsdale. Refreshed and renewed, Back continued his ventures in the financial realm but also began dabbling in the culinary world, getting involved in the chocolate business and working with his cousins in the family wine business in South Africa.

One thing he missed was good bread, so he turned his curiosity and laser-like focus on bread-baking. In the meantime, his wife gifted him with a week at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America where he was temporarily captivated by chocolate and pastry making. However, his fascination with “good bread” never wavered and he jerry-rigged his home oven to practice the art of bread baking. As his endeavors expanded, he extended his kitchen into his community’s clubhouse.

In 2005, Back attended the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco and, after that, attended classes at the prestigious San Francisco Baking Institute. His instructor was Jeffrey Yankellow, who, by the end of the program, had surmised that this student had more than a pedestrian curiosity about the business of bread. Their discussions soon turned “big picture” as Back had readily identified Phoenix as an opportune locale for his world-class bread bakery.

Unbeknownst to Yankellow, Back had diligently done his homework before coming to class, as there had been one obstacle that had haunted him since his first dream of building a bakery in Phoenix on a par with San Francisco: how to develop a sourdough starter that could withstand the tough and arid Arizona conditions. So, with his usual determination and pluck, Back crafted two sourdough starters (which he named Eunice and Eudora) at home and nurtured them on his kitchen countertop until he was confident that they could kick-start his bakery.

Simply Bread’s evolution from kitchen countertop to culinary phenomena took a mere 12 months. In early 2005, he convinced Yankellow to join him, then bought a building and equipment, received all of his permits just after Thanksgiving, and opened the doors to Simply Bread on February 22, 2006.