I'm answering my own question. I was over thinking the issue. I manually created a wpftext control with the appropriate search criteria and took the text value of the control. The same way the code generator defines the controls.
private WpfText _LoadNumberText = null;
public WpfText LoadNumberText
{
get
{
if ((this._LoadNumberText == null))
{
this._LoadNumberText = new WpfText(this.UIGradeStarpoweredbyExWindow.UIItemCustom2.UIItemCustom1);
#region Search Criteria
this._LoadNumberText.SearchProperties[WpfText.PropertyNames.AutomationId] = "DocNumber";
this._LoadNumberText.WindowTitles.Contains("Window Title");
#endregion
}
return this._LoadNumberText;
}