Art Rowland of Scottsdale on Life, Lessons & Legacy

We’re looking forward to introducing you to Art Rowland. Check out our conversation below.

Hi Art, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
The development path for our small business and especially the actual shortbread cookies themselves reflect several important and reoccurring themes that I’ve see throughout my life experiences. The drive for consistency and implementation of process improvements has allowed us maintain a very high quality shortbread while growing the number of customers and unique flavor offerings. These themes creative an environment for great outcomes….start with and maintain high standards, improve the process to deliver a consistent product and positive word spreads among customers.

Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
Inspired by a picnic lunch in the California wine country and a chance encounter with the most incredible shortbread cookie, a new journey began.
Art was a banker by day and baker by night who creates small batch gourmet shortbread cookies using the finest ingredients to create a depth of flavor in every bite. With 25+ seasonal rotating flavors, each batch is hand crafted to deliver a consistent flavor and texture experience.
Based in Scottsdale, Arizona, The Art of Shortbread is a small business run by Kathy & Art from their Arcadia home. They bake to order providing freshness with each hand-crafted batch.

Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
Individuals have more in common than we currently give ourselves credit for and leaning into those mutual understandings is a great way to build lasting relationships.

If you could say one kind thing to your younger self, what would it be?
Look for opportunities to be creative outside of your main line of work.

So a lot of these questions go deep, but if you are open to it, we’ve got a few more questions that we’d love to get your take on. Whom do you admire for their character, not their power?
With a long career in the commercial lending industry Art worked closely with business owners to start, expand, and build their businesses. These large and small businesses across many industries reflect the character of their owners. These owners (many of which are family enterprises) are backbones of their communities, provide meaningful employment opportunities, and help to drive the economy in countless ways. The hard work of these business owners and their ability to get things done is to be admired.

Thank you so much for all of your openness so far. Maybe we can close with a future oriented question. When do you feel most at peace?
When the job is well done. Smoothness of execution with a top tier result.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theartofshortbread.com
• Instagram: @theartofshortbread
• Facebook: @The Art of Shortbread

Image Credits
Phoenix New Times