Thanh Huyen Dang: Bread General Manager

Since I opened Macrina in 1993, so many amazing people have helped make the bakery what it is today. In honor of our 25th anniversary, we are spotlighting a few key employees. Each fills an essential role at Macrina. When I interviewed and hired Huyen Dang she was still a senior in high school. Our wholesale pastry manager, Tramy Le, recommended her. Right away Huyen made an impression with her hard work and attention to detail. Over the years she’s proved she can handle big responsibilities. Not only does she know how to do just about every job in production, she is frequently on the floor helping whichever group most needs the help. She plays a key role in our success.Leslie

Huyen's Role at Macrina

Thanh Huyen Dang, who goes by Huyen (pronounced “Wen”), is the general manager of Macrina’s bread production. She oversees the teams that prepare the dough, bake the bread, and do the packing. Overall, Huyen manages nearly 100 people. While she has plenty of office work to tackle, you’ll often find her on the production floor shaping loaves of bread. Huyen says, “Because we form every loaf of bread by hand, it is a lot of work.”Huyen earned her general manager position through hard work and a talent for managing people. She was still in high school when she started working part-time at Macrina in 2002. After finishing high school, she moved to full time in the wholesale pastry department. Two years later, Phuong Bui, Head Baker, invited Huyen to join him in the bread department as his general. She was promoted to Bread General Manager in 2012. While many at Macrina know how hard Huyen works, few know it better than Jane Cho, Macrina’s Production Manager. “Huyen’s work ethic is incomparable,” Jane says. “She has the most positive can-do attitude and is always willing to help with whatever is needed.” December is always a hectic month at Macrina with holiday production in full swing. Jane remembers her first holiday rush in her new job as Production Manager vividly. “Huyen and I had already been working for 16 hours and still had a lot to do,” Jane says. “I insisted she go home, but she saw that delivery drivers were already starting to arrive and so much packing still had to be done. We formed a tag-team pack station on the fly. We were delirious from exhaustion and just when we thought we were done, someone rolled up a few more racks of bread. We just looked at each other and started to laugh hysterically.” Jane smiles at the memory of Huyen being right there supporting her through the challenge, then adds, “But here’s the thing about Huyen, she does that for everyone—co-managers and employees in all departments. I am so grateful for her support and guidance.”

Huyen and Family

What makes Huyen’s demanding job even more impressive is that she also has three children, ages fifteen, six, and five, to care for. Fortunately, Huyen comes from a close family, and her parents are available to help with the kids. Huyen and her family moved to Seattle from Vietnam when she was ten. She attended Whitman Middle School and Ingraham High School. “At first, learning English made school hard,” she says. “My parents don’t speak English. ESL classes at school helped.” Fluent in both English and Vietnamese, Huyen helps many of Macrina’s Vietnamese employees when they need help with a translation. “While I speak Vietnamese at home, there are many words related to baking that I didn’t know. My Vietnamese has gotten better in the time I’ve worked here.”