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St. Louis Park, Minnesota, has perhaps a sweeter history than its Minneapolis suburb counterparts. That’s because St. Louis Park is home to Nordic Ware, maker of the Bundt cake pan—and about 350 other products. The company’s success can be partially attributed to two women: Dorothy Dalquist, co-founder with her husband, the late H. David Dalquist; and Ella Rita Helfrich, second-place winner of the 1966 Pillsbury Bake-Off competition.

Dorothy and David purchased Northland Aluminum Products in 1946 after he returned from serving in the U.S. Navy during World War II. They began manufacturing bakeware under the Nordic Ware name, with the first four products designed to make Scandinavian specialties: the rosette, krumkake, platte panne, and Ebelskiver. In 1950, members of a local chapter of a Jewish women’s society asked the company to create a pan for baking kugelhopf, a cake their mothers had baked in tall ceramic molds. David created an aluminum pan, initially naming it a “bund” pan from the German word meaning “bond,” then adding the “t” later when trademarking the name. The company sold few of the pans and almost discontinued it many times.

That changed with Ella’s award-winning Tunnel of Fudge Cake recipe, which required a Bundt pan. The Bake-Off contest was followed fanatically by American homemakers, and Pillsbury received over 200,000 letters inquiring how to buy a Bundt pan. Implementing 24/7 production, Nordic Ware manufactured as many as 30,000 Bundt pans a day, and demand remained strong for the next two decades. The pan is now found in seventy million homes.

The influential Dorothy worked behind the scenes, testing recipes, brainstorming new ideas, and working with salespeople and food editors. She developed many recipes for the Bundt pan and laid the foundation for a partnership with Pillsbury, who began developing and selling Bundt cake mixes, some that were packaged with the pan.

Besides her hands-on product work, Dorothy managed the company’s finances and volunteered for various community boards and organizations. She raised four children, serving as her daughters’ Girl Scout leader and no doubt providing tutoring in St. Louis Park for all her children. She is currently Chairman of the Board for Nordic Ware and its parent company and was inducted into the Minnesota Women Business Owners Hall of Fame in 2015.

The company has kept up with technology, using digital sketching and prototyping with 3D printers to create new products, but it also has intentionally hesitated to automate production, instead choosing to preserve jobs. The company makes most of its products in the United States and donates its second-quality products to charities, who sell them to raise funds.

Although the Nordic Ware success story seems a hard act to follow, students should remember that hard work in school and hiring St. Louis Park tutors for the difficult classes can go a long way in setting students up for brilliant success ahead, regardless of their career path.