Charles W. Lubin*

Charles Lubin was born in Illinois, in 1904. He started as a baker's apprentice at age 14 in Decatur, Illinois, and worked for 16 years for other baking firms in Chicago.

In 1935, Lubin and his brother-in-law pooled their resources of $700, borrowed an additional $800, and bought three retail bakeries. Lubin began experimenting with specialty baked products for mass marketing in the early 1940s. In 1950, he organized Kitchens of Sara Lee, named for his daughter. In 1956, Consolidated Foods Corp. acquired Sara Lee, and Lubin stayed on as CEO.

Lubin developed the idea of baking and selling Sara Lee goods in aluminum foil pans and freezing the completely baked products immediately after removing them from the oven to guarantee freshness.