Steve Bernard

Steve Bernard (August 25, 1947 – March 7, 2009) was an American adventurer and businessman who founded Cape Cod Potato Chips with his brother Jude. Biography Born on August 25, 1947, in Concord, New Hampshire, Bernard attended the University of Notre Dame, where he earned a degree in economics. A restless adventurer, he spent the decade following his graduation crossing the country by hitchhiking, in Alaska fighting forest fires and sailing to the Caribbean, working with chickens and catching tuna, as well as installing car sun roofs. Cape Cod Potato Chips With the idea of offering healthier foods made with little processing, his wife, Lynn, had started a natural foods store in the 1970s. Bernard pursued adding potato chips to the mix after tasting a natural potato chip from a successful company based in Hawaii. In 1980, he sold his auto parts business and established Cape Cod Potato Chips with an storefront in Hyannis, Massachusetts, that could reach tourists, an industrial potato slicer he had bought for $3,000 and almost no knowledge of the snack food business other than what he learned in a week-long course on potato chip making at Martin's Potato Chips in Thomasville, Pennsylvania.