Ben and Jerry: A $5 course in ice cream making led to riches

You are likely one of the millions of Americans who have enjoyed the ice cream made by the company founded by Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield. Their product is known by one name but many flavors. Perhaps the best known of these is Cherry Garcia which was named for the leader of the rock band Grateful Dead. Their story begins in 1978 on Long Island in New York. Jerry Greenfield originally wanted to be a doctor and he kept applying to medical school and kept getting rejected. At this point both he and Ben Cohen decided that they both wanted a "fun job" and they figured that the ice cream business could provide that for them. They took a $5 corespondence course on ice cream making from Penn State University, scraped together their combined savings of $8000, borrowed $4000 more and went off to Burlington, Vermont to start their company. Initially they ran the business out of a converted garage. They did well nearly from the beginning and their brand name and reputation grew. By 1986 they were topping 20 million a year in sales.
From early on they decided and were determined to run and maintain a company that would exercise environmentally friendly production practices despite the negative effect this might have on their bottom line.
They were also very worker friendly and socially involved. During a period in the 1980's when the company experienced a slowdown in sales instead of laying off employees they kept them on the payroll and sent them out to do community improvment projects such as winterizing the homes of senior citizens.
The success of Ben and Jerry's ice cream company was more than either of its founders could ever have hoped for. In the year 2000 they sold the company to Unilever for 326 million dollars.