Melissa Holt wanted her children to experience something she and her husband had not when they were kids: getting picked up from school and coming home to the smell of fresh baked cookies.
So after the birth of her second child, their first together, Melissa gave up her position as a specimen-handling specialist at a Metro Vancouver medical lab and became a stay-at-home mom for seven years.
“My husband, Jay, was a latch-key kid,” Holt, 38, said, adding she was raised by a single mother who also couldn’t always be home for Melissa and her sister.
“We would come home from school to an empty house.”
When Holt decided to slowly re-enter the workforce, time with her three children remained the priority and, luckily, she found work where she could continue breaking bread with her family, every day.
Holt, nee Watts, was born in North Vancouver and is a member of the Tseshaht First Nation through her dad. Holt and her sister lived throughout the Lower Mainland in their early years before settling in Langley, where she graduated high school.
Holt became a single mother in her late teens, but that didn’t stop her from pursuing higher education. Originally wanting to be a veterinarian after working six years as a vet assistant in her teens, she changed course and studied chemistry at Trinity Western University.
Three years after the birth of her first daughter, Chauntel, she met her husband Jay, a stockbroker. They then had two children, Faith and Maverick.
“Jay and I talked about it; I wanted to experience life with [the kids],” Holt said. “We had to make sacrifices as we were a single income family, so we didn’t’ get a big house and we had to make different choices to make it all work.”
When Maverick turned seven, Holt started looking for part-time work, but she was selective. She was offered a sales position at Cobs Bread and took it.
“I was offered other positions in other places, but the one thing I was not going to do was sacrifice my family for a part-time job,” Holt said. “I told the manager at Cobs that my number one priority is family. Family first, job second. They loved it and said come on in.”
Holt started off part-time and then got really interested in the business. While she had experience in home baking, she never had a formal education in it. She then became a baker and soon became interested in running the Cobs Bread she was working at.
“I really fell in love with it,” Holt said. “I would get up early; baking started at 2 a.m. and would be off at 10 a.m.”
Holt took over management of the Suterbrook Cobs and after one month, the store saw a profit. Growth has continued ever since and last December, with a loan and support from the Nuu-chah-nulth Economic Development Corporation, Holt and her husband purchased the store.
“The NEDC really helped us out,” Holt said. “We were offered loans by the regular big banks, but they don’t have our best interest at heart. They don’t really care. They’ll get their money back anyways. The NEDC has a vested interest in seeing First Nation businesses succeeding.”
The bakery currently has 18 employees, with up to seven full-time workers. Holt calls the staff at the bakery her second family and one of the hiring practices her husband put in place was they would only hire people who they could see themselves having an enjoyable dinner with. This philosophy has led to a higher employment retention rate.
The bakery has also been a first job for Holt’s children. Faith, 15, and Maverick, 13, work at the store at times, juggling part-time work with school and competitive sports.
Holt credits loving what she does and being active in the community for the store’s success. She and her husband are assistant coaches, they donate baked goods for local fundraisers and events, and all leftover product is donated to a number of community groups each day. The groups include a shelter, rehab facility, school lunch programs, a First Nations school and church groups.
“We were really missing out when the bakery was not reaching out to the community,” Holt said. “When we support these groups, they in turn support us by marketing for us.”
The bakery also has a larger range of goods than other Cobs stores, and also supply local restaurants.
As her business grows, Holt hopes to pay off the loan in less than three years and then purchase a second store. She is also familiarizing herself with her First Nations roots.
Last summer, she reconnected with her biological father and she has visited Port Alberni, completely aware that she has a large extended family residing there.
“The Watts family is huge over there,” Holt said, with a laugh. “It’s like almost everyone is a Watts.”
