Ben and Jerry’s co-founder to speak Oct. 17

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Jerry Greenfield, of Ben & Jerry’s fame, will be headlining Saunders College of Business’s Gasser Lecture Series during the 2014 RIT Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend.

Jerry Greenfield’s favorite ice cream is Ben & Jerry’s Americone Dream—“a cold, bold, caramel-swirled, fudge covered waffle cone”—heralded as Stephen Colbert’s Americone Dream!

But the real American dream started in 1978 when Greenfield and his high school chum, Ben Cohen—who are still best of friends and business partners today—opened Ben & Jerry’s homemade ice cream parlor in Burlington, Vt.

“We learned how to make ice cream from a $5 Penn State correspondence course and started out with vanilla because its distinctive flavor really lets you know if you have a good ice cream or not—plus it still is the most popular flavor,” said Greenfield. He will be headlining Saunders College of Business Gasser Lecture Series at Rochester Institute of Technology during the 2014 RIT Brick City Homecoming & Family Weekend.

Greenfield’s lecture—“An Afternoon of Entrepreneurial Spirit, Social Responsibility and Radical Business Philosophy”—will be held from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 17, at RIT’s Student Alumni Union Ingle Auditorium. The event will be followed by a booksigning (Ben & Jerry’s Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book) and free scoops of ice cream for guests to enjoy a taste of Ben & Jerry’s Cookie Dough, Cherry Garcia, or Chocolate Therapy in Saunders College atrium, Lowenthal Hall.

“We’ve all enjoyed our favorite scoop of ice cream at Ben & Jerry’s on the RIT campus, (mine is Chunky Monkey), so we are delighted to hear the background story behind two entrepreneurs who turned a store-front venture into a publicly-held ice cream empire through social responsibility and creative management,” said Jacqueline Mozrall, interim dean of Saunders College. “Jerry Greenfield has a sweet success story to share; Ben & Jerry’s has survived, and thrived, by treating its employees, the community and the environment with respect.”

Greenfield and Cohen sold Ben & Jerry’s to Unilever in 2000—which now claims nearly 350 franchises worldwide in 34 countries—and they remain employed by the company and retain offices in Burlington. Although not involved in management or operations, the partners continue to expand the social mission of the company—and during their 35-plus years, have taken stands on Occupy Wall Street, GMO labeling, oil drilling in Alaska, marriage equality, environmentalism and Fair Trade, to name a few.

“We are much more than a company with great tasting ice cream and some interesting names and flavors; we double scoop, combining ice cream with a social mission,” Greenfield said. “We’ve always viewed Ben & Jerry’s as a neighbor in the community—and neighbors take care of neighbors.”

Greenfield said he has some advice for RIT student entrepreneurs: “Start small because it forces you to learn all the different aspects of your business, do something you are passionate about and in target with your own personal values, and don’t wait until you think you have it all figured out—because you will never have it all figured out.”

The William D. Gasser lecture series is hosted annually by Saunders College of Business and designed to advance interaction and dialogue between business and academic communities. It is made possible by a gift from the late John Wiley Jones, former honorary member of the RIT Board of Trustees and founder of Jones Chemicals Inc., in memory of William D. Gasser. Gasser taught accounting at RIT from 1967 until his death in 1977.

Tickets for the Saunders College Gasser Lecture Series with Jerry Greenfield are $5 for students, $15 for RIT parents/guardian/guests, alumni, faculty/staff, and the public. To register, go to the RIT University Arenas website. For more information, contact Dana Pierce at 585-475-2199 or dpierce@saunders.rit.edu.

Note: Saunders College of Business is one of nine colleges at Rochester Institute of Technology and accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB). Enrolling more than 1,000 undergraduate and graduate students, Saunders College works in partnership with RIT’s entrepreneurial Venture Creations incubator and the Albert J. Simone Center for Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship to integrate business education with RIT’s world-leading technical and creative programs. Graduate programs include Master of Business Administration, MBA-Accounting, Executive MBA and master’s degrees in finance and administration.