They met as the two fattest seventh-graders in gym class, and became the two most famous names to grace an ice cream pint.

Jerry Greenfield, co-founder of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, spoke for more than an hour to a large crowd at the Holmes Student Center’s Carl Sandburg Auditorium Tuesday night.

With crowds anxiously waiting outside closed doors, they could only anticipate what flavor of ice cream they were about to be given.

“I hope they serve Karamel Sutra,” said Kristin Ramm, a junior child development major. “I think it’s a fun name and I want to know what he was thinking when he named it.”

Senior accounting major Colin Boyd was opting for a more familiar flavor.

“I hope they serve Half Baked,” Boyd said. “It seems like it would be geared toward the college target market more and they would appreciate it as well.”

Instead, miniature pints of Cherry Garcia and Chocolate Fudge Brownie ice cream were passed throughout the auditorium.

Greenfield was welcomed with laughs and applause when he said, “I find I’m better received when I bring ice cream.”

His presentation, “A Night of Social Responsibility, Radical Business Philosophy and Free Ice Cream,” was nothing like a lecture on the ethics of business and ways to succeed. Instead, Greenfield merely spoke of his life story to the audience in a very down-to-earth manner, never glancing down at note cards or an outline.

“I met Ben in our seventh grade, in gym class,” he said. “We were the two shortest, fattest kids in there and our coach wanted us to run the mile quicker next time. I remember Ben saying if he couldn’t run it fast enough this time, he couldn’t run it any faster the next time. After hearing this, I knew Ben was someone I wanted to know.”

The two went to high school together and when it was time for college, they both went in different routes. Greenfield went to college in Ohio as a pre-med major while Ben Cohen decided not to go college. Greenfield applied at 20 different medical schools and was rejected by all of them.

“We then decided, ‘Gee, why don’t we do something that’s fun where we’re our own boss,’” he said. “We both like food, so let’s do that.”

The two enrolled in a course fittingly titled “Ice Cream” that cost $5, which they split. Both getting A’s in the class, they knew they were ready to open their own ice cream business.

“We were looking for a location to build the business, which we wanted in a rural college town because college kids eat ice cream,” Greenfield said. “We also wanted it somewhere warm so people would want to eat ice cream.”

Looking at atlases, the two soon realized that all the warm, rural towns already had ice cream parlors.

“We discarded the idea of the warm climate and chose Burlington, Vt.,” he said. “It was better to have no competition than warm weather.”

With the town decided upon, the next obstacle to conquer would be the money to open shop. Applying for a loan at a local bank in Burlington was harder than they anticipated seeing that the two had nothing as far as collateral, family members or residence in the town.

Before long, they were granted a loan and renovated an old gas station themselves with green, rough-cut lumber, which Greenfield said gave it a nice rugged look.

The store opened in the summer of 1978 with them “makin’ ice cream and scoopin’ ice cream. It was a great summer,” Greenfield said.

Winter wasn’t as successful for the two because they were sure “people were afraid that their tongue would freeze licking their ice cream cones,” Greenfield explained.

So, Greenfield said they did the best promotion ever. They offered a penny off per celsius-degree-below-zero ice cream cone extravaganza.

Soon the ice cream was being sold to local restaurants, which began the marketing and distributing of the Ben and Jerry’s pints. Growing in popularity, dessert giant Pillsbury (owner of Haagen-Dazs ice cream) got nervous of the competition and didn’t want their distributors to carry Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream in their trucks. This sparked Greenfield and Cohen’s “What’s the Dough Boy Afraid Of?” campaign.

By placing ads in Rolling Stone magazine, passing out flyers, placing an 800 number on their pints and flying over baseball stadiums to receive public support, Pillsbury backed down and let their distributors carry Ben and Jerry’s again.

“Soon we realized we were business men, not ice-cream makers,” Greenfield said. “This was not our idea of a fun time. We saw the spiritual side of the business, where as you give you receive – as you help you are rewarded. We are all interconnected. The press even claimed that we were cynically trying to manipulate customers to buy by doing good things.”

Ramm was really happy with the performance.

“He was a cool guy and really down-to-earth, she said. “It was very beneficial to hear his thoughts on business after hearing his background on how he started. I think the ice cream was delicious. The containers were so cute.”

Boyd thought Greenfield was informative.

“I think he was very insightful,” he said. “I think his message was very valuable and had great examples of situations he faced.”

Brooke Beyers, Campus Activities Board speakers coordinator, thought the performance was very successful.

“I think the turnout was great,” she said. “The audience seemed really interested in everything that he said. He was very captivating.”

Advice Greenfield gave for future entrepreneurs is to simply go for it.

“You should do it,” he said. “It is incredibly motivating to work for yourself,” he said. “Do something that you’re passionate about and put your values into it.”

Sophomore accounting major Matt Gibson laughed throughout the entire performance.

“I think he was really inspiring,” Gibson said. “I liked the way he relates to the people that he works with.”