Jerry Greenfield grew up in Long Island and attended Oberlin College, where he was a National Merit Scholar while studying a pre-med curriculum before graduating in 1973. A member of the men's lacrosse team and former ice cream scooper in the school's cafeteria, Greenfield's application for medical school was declined, which led him to go into business with his childhood friend Ben Cohen. After taking a course in ice cream making from Penn State, Greenfield and Cohen opened their first ice cream store in downtown Burlington, Vermont, and the rest is history. The company - Ben & Jerry's - sold to the British-Dutch corporation Unilever in 2000 and has since opened almost 200 franchised shops around the country.
