Jerry Greenfield co-founder of Ben and Jerry's to speak at Fairfield | Press Releases

Jerry Greenfield (L), co-founder of Ben & Jerry's, congratulates students (L-R Jennifer Mazzo, Jenn Sturges, Jeanne Volputta and Dan Vaccaro) for their leadership in winning the 1999 Gold Medal for Excellence from the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness. Fairfield students helped raise $8,500 and enlisted 500 volunteers to work at 40 community sites as part of a national effort.

An evening of social responsibility, radical business philosophy and free dessert for all will be led by Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade, Inc., on Wednesday, Feb. 9, at 7:30 p.m., at Fairfield University's Kelley Theatre in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.

Jerry Greenfield and long-time friend and business partner, Ben Cohen, are the men behind one of the most talked-about and least conventional success stories in American business. They built a storefront venture into a $160 million publicly held ice cream empire by making social responsibility and creative management strengths instead of weaknesses. By breaking all the rules of business, Ben & Jerry's has proven that you don't have to sacrifice social responsibility and good clean fun to succeed. The public is invited to hear from one of the founders about how they made Cherry Garcia and Wavy Gravy household names without losing their commitment to the environment and to helping mankind.

In bringing all these topics to life, Greenfield delivers a rousing tribute to America's entrepreneurial spirit, full of hilarious anecdotes and innovative business philosophy. He also addresses the great sense of fun that is the company's hallmark, punctuated with the serving of Ben & Jerry's ice cream to the entire audience.

Jerry Greenfield was born in Brooklyn, New York, four days before his partner, Ben Cohen, who he didn't meet until junior high school in Merrick, Long Island; the two have remained close friends ever since. Greenfield enrolled at Oberlin College where he got his first taste of the ice cream industry when he took a job as a scooper in the school's cafeteria. After graduation the two friends shared an apartment in New York City and, in 1977, decided to run a food business together. They settled on ice cream as their product and, after a bit of research and a $5 Penn State course on ice cream making, opened Ben & Jerry's Homemade ice cream parlor in Burlington, Vermont.

Tickets to Jerry Greenfield's lecture, sponsored by the Fairfield University Student Association, are $15 for adults and $10 for children and seniors. For more information, call the box office at (203) 254-4010 or toll-free at 1-877-ARTS-396.