The two slowest and fattest kids in their seventh grade gym class would grow up to create an ice cream empire. Who would have guessed? Students, faculty and members of the community piled into Fowler Hall Tuesday night to hear the story of Jerry Greenfield, the Jerry behind Ben & Jerry's ice cream.
The speech, part of the Purdue Series on Corporate Citizenship and Ethics, centered around how the company grew and the values it took with it.
Starting in 1978 with $12,000 and a five-gallon ice cream maker, Greenfield and his partner, Ben Cohen sold enough ice cream to make themselves multi-millionaires. The idea to sell ice cream proved better than their original idea, the United Bagel Service, which would deliver a bagel and a newspaper to customers' doors.
As Ben & Jerry's grew, Greenfield said they began to realize they were were becoming businessmen.
"We had grown up in the �60s, and to us, business had all these negative connotations we didn't want any part of," Greenfield said.
They decided to start the Ben & Jerry Foundation that would take 7.5 percent of pre-tax profits and put it toward social causes.
"It's not that business is evil or bad," Greenfield said. "It's mainly just without values."
The values of social consciousness and responsibility to the community were those that Greenfield and Cohen built into their company. He explained those values to the crowd.
Chris Stier, a graduate student, said those values are noble when most businesses are only concerned with making money.
"It was different from the norm," Stier said.
As the crowd filed out of Fowler Hall after Greenfield's speech, many headed to the faculty lounges in the Purdue Memorial Union for the post-speech reception.
Greenfield was there to shake hands and answer questions. Of course, ice cream was available.
