Regional Oral History Office University of California The Bancroft ...

[Pages:56]Regional Oral History Office The Bancroft Library

University of California Berkeley, California

William (Bill) Collett THE DREYER'S GRAND ICE CREAM ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

Interviews conducted by Victor Geraci in 2011

Copyright ? 2013 by The Regents of the University of California

Since 1954 the Regional Oral History Office has been interviewing leading participants in or well-placed witnesses to major events in the development of Northern California, the West, and the nation. Oral History is a method of collecting historical information through tape-recorded interviews between a narrator with firsthand knowledge of historically significant events and a well-informed interviewer, with the goal of preserving substantive additions to the historical record. The tape recording is transcribed, lightly edited for continuity and clarity, and reviewed by the interviewee. The corrected manuscript is bound with photographs and illustrative materials and placed in The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, and in other research collections for scholarly use. Because it is primary material, oral history is not intended to present the final, verified, or complete narrative of events. It is a spoken account, offered by the interviewee in response to questioning, and as such it is reflective, partisan, deeply involved, and irreplaceable.

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All uses of this manuscript are covered by a legal agreement between The Regents of the University of California and William Collett, dated June 27, 2011. The manuscript is thereby made available for research purposes. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of The Bancroft Library of the University of California, Berkeley.

Requests for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, Mail Code 6000, University of California, Berkeley, 94720-6000, and should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user.

It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows:

William Collett, "The Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Oral History Project," conducted by Victor Geraci 2011, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley, 2013.

Table of Contents--Bill Collett

Interview #1 May 9, 2011

[Audio File 1]

1

Growing up in Concord and San Jose--San Jose State, Army Reserves, UC Berkeley--Working in the restaurant business--Athletics--Meeting Jane Soul? and marrying--Starting business school at University of Minnesota-- Returning to California to work in banking and finance--Family: Kristina, Elizabeth, Stuart--Coming to work at Dreyer's as the first (and only) treasurer of the company.

[Audio File 2]

17

Financing acquisitions and growth at Dreyer's--Flexibility and new challenges--Ben & Jerry's--Expanding to the New York market--"Not by the book"--Texas, Phoenix, Fresno--"White-squire financing"--Nestl?-- Investor relations--Writing the annual report for Dreyer's--A culture of ownership, responsibility, opportunity.

[Audio File 3]

33

Importance of Collett's transition and contract experience as a factor in his professional contribution to the growth of Dreyer's--Innovation and low-fat products: Grand Light--The Grooves and Hoopla--Financing growth-- Building the Union City plant: a learning experience--Dreyer's principles, rather than rules--Yoshi's, the conference center, the legacy of Rick Cronk and Gary Rogers--More about the Nestl? deal, transitional financing, professional transitions.

[Audio File 4]

47

The Mother of All Parties--Growth and the Grooves.

[End of Interview]

1

Interview #1 May 9, 2011 [Begin Audio File 1]

01-00:00:11

Geraci:

Hi, I'm Vic Geraci, food and wine historian from the University of California Berkeley's Regional Oral History Office. Today's date is Monday, May 9, 2011. Seated with me is Bill Collett. Mr. Collett worked as treasurer for Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream. Well, to get the interview started, what I do with all our subjects is let's get a little bit about the background of your life. Who you are. Let's start with your parents, growing up, and your grandparents. Where'd you grow up?

01-00:00:42

Collett:

I grew up in Concord, California, not far from here.

01-00:00:45

Geraci:

So you are local, then?

01-00:00:46

Collett:

I'm a local. My mother and father both came to California during World War Two, separately. My father, earlier than that, to work on the Bay Bridge Project. He was a construction worker. My mother came out and was in the Navy. She was stationed at what was known as Camp Parks, out in Alameda County, which is now just simply the north side of Highway 580. That's how my family got out here.

01-00:01:26

Geraci:

Out from where?

01-00:01:27

Collett:

My mother was from western Kansas. Cimarron. Child of the Dust Bowl. My dad was a construction worker. He was an operating engineer, a crane operator. Came out here from Rockwood, Tennessee. He was very much a blue-collar guy. Left home when he was in the eighth grade and traveled around, along with his brothers, kind of tail end of the Depression.

01-00:02:00

Geraci:

I was going to say, that sounds like a Depression-era story.

01-00:02:02

Collett:

Yeah, very much so. They came out. They met when they were out here and started a family. I have an older sister, who is two years older.

01-00:02:15

Geraci:

What's her name?

01-00:02:16

Collett:

Her name is Karla, with a "K." She's a technology writer for software products. We grew up in Concord. I went to Mount Diablo High School for a

01-00:02:41

Geraci:

01-00:02:43

Collett:

01-00:02:48

Geraci:

01-00:02:50

Collett:

01-00:03:17

Geraci:

01-00:03:18

Collett:

01-00:03:42

Geraci:

01-00:03:52

Collett:

01-00:05:29

Geraci:

01-00:05:31

Collett:

2

couple of years and graduated later. We moved to San Jose when I was a junior in high school. I went to Lincoln High School in San Jose.

That's a tough time to make a move.

It was difficult. It turned out to be a good thing.

At the time, you had questions, though, I imagine.

At the time, I had significant questions about that. It didn't seem like a good thing at the time, but it turned out to be a very good thing, only because it simply steered me in a slightly different direction than I was at that time. I went to San Jose State College, as it was known then, for two years.

What years are these?

This would have been 1967-8, and eight nine. I was then in the very first draft lottery. In the very first draft lottery, depending on how you look at it, I was either a winner or not a winner, but--

You and I must be exactly the same age, because I was also. I can remember watching on TV as they pulled those ping pong balls with the numbers.

I was actually playing in an AAU volleyball tournament in Santa Clara with some of my high school buddies. We had continued to play basketball and volleyball after high school. I was playing in the tournament and we were listening to it. My number came up, number sixty, which then went in, I believe, the second month. But that event, and that particular situation, led me to seek a position in the Reserves, because I wasn't particularly enamored with the notion of going to Southeast Asia. I joined the Army Reserves in San Jose, the ninety-first division, and went to Fort Ord, California to do basic training. Basic training--an interesting experience all the way around. Actually, it was very interesting. When I got out of the Active Duty component of that, I applied for and transferred to Berkeley. I entered Berkeley in the fall of 1971 and graduated two and a half years later.

Were you majoring in something in particular at San Jose?

I was majoring in history, ultimately. There were a number of stops along the way. A number of other levels of interest. Frankly, I got to the point that I

01-00:06:49

Geraci:

01-00:06:50

Collett:

01-00:09:15

Geraci:

01-00:09:19

Collett:

3

think a lot of people do at that age. Gosh, it might be a good idea if I just finish up here. I graduated in the spring of '72, which really wasn't that far off of when I should have. Nonetheless, graduated from Berkeley. That was a tumultuous time. I had put myself through the college. Initially, the first two years, I was working in a civil engineering office for the County of Santa Clara in San Jose when I was going to San Jose State. I was working part-time during the school year, fulltime in the summer. Then when I was at Berkeley, I was working in the restaurant business part-time. Part-time in the restaurant business just means four days instead of five during the school year.

Any particular restaurant?

Yeah, that actually is part of the story here, ultimately. I worked at a number of steakhouse-like restaurants around the Bay Area, starting all the way down the peninsula in Palo Alto at a place called the Cooperage , which was right next to Chuck's Steakhouse on the El Camino. Then, ultimately, up here in Lafayette, a place by the name of the Symposium. The Symposium later became the Rusty Scupper. Then I worked at a place over in San Mateo for a while, owned by the same people that owned the Rusty Scupper, called Borel's. Then, ultimately, at the Walnut Creek Railroad Station. It was while I was at the Walnut Creek Railroad Station that I determined that--there was a restaurant in Orinda. I'm skipping forward a touch here. There was a restaurant in Orinda at that time that was the place to work. Everybody that I knew at the railroad station, which was a very good position for waiters and bartenders and people of our age--everybody you worked with was the same age and kind of doing the same thing, avoiding what I would call a real job, which is, in essence, what I was doing. I wanted to get a job at the Vintage House. The Vintage House in Orinda was Gary and Rick's restaurant. I knew of some people that worked at the Vintage House, but I didn't know anyone really. I didn't know Gary and Rick. I did try to get a job there, and I didn't get the job. Many years later, this became an item of discussion during my interview with Dreyer's, when I decided that I'd bring it up myself, which was interesting. In any event, after this--

Which makes it interesting, because there's the Vintage House boys. There's the whole group that comes in from the Vintage House.

Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a whole group of people that were Vintage House employees, which ultimately either worked at or became associated with Dreyer's. Very large number of people. Large number of people that I still know--friends of mine. I was not one of them. I didn't make the cut there. I wasn't able to get a job. Ultimately, when I applied for a job at Dreyer's and I had an interview with Gary and Rick, by that time I had a lot of other experience. I had a portfolio of real jobs that were relevant to the position for

01-00:10:35

Geraci:

01-00:10:40

Collett:

01-00:12:13

Geraci:

01-00:12:28

Collett:

01-00:12:35

Geraci:

01-00:12:38

Collett:

01-00:12:41

Geraci:

01-00:12:44

Collett:

01-00:12:45

Geraci:

4

which I was applying. I decided that it would be a good idea to put my restaurant experience on the r?sum?. In the context of discussing that in the interviews, which I thought was relevant and they did too, I brought up the fact that I had tried to get a job with them, what was then twenty years earlier. Not twenty. Seventeen. That was actually a subject of discussion. It's still a subject of discussion to this day.

What was their response?

Rick always said, "We would have hired you. We would have hired you. We didn't know. We don't remember it quite that way." But I remember it that way. It was almost funny. But the restaurant business was relevant, in my view, to be on my resume, even though this was a long time later and a lot of finance jobs later for me. It was relevant in the sense that there is a tremendous value to having any kind of a job where you have to deliver the product to the public directly and figure out how to do that in a way that's consistent with what it is that you're selling, if you will. But also to be able to handle what is the response, the public. Make people happy. It's very relevant. It's not different than a lot of jobs in other business. Sometimes it seems like it's not really a job, but it really is. People who do it well have a skill, and they have the ability to interact directly, one-on-one, with people. That is transferable to other things. That's why I brought it up.

It's a definite skill, because it's a people skill. It's knowing how to approach people. It's knowing how to ameliorate problems. When you deal with the public, there's always little problems or issues that transpire.

And the public is no different than the business public. You're dealing with people in other parts of your own--

Because eventually, these people would consume the product you're producing anyway.

That's right.

Let's go back to school for a second. What was your major?

I was a history major.

So you stayed with history?

01-00:12:46

Collett:

01-00:13:24

Geraci:

01-00:13:42

Collett:

01-00:14:21

Geraci:

01-00:14:23

Collett:

01-00:14:35

Geraci:

01-00:14:37

Collett:

01-00:15:26

Geraci:

01-00:15:27

Collett:

01-00:15:38

Geraci:

01-00:15:42

Collett:

5

I stayed with history. I ended up a history major, the value of which, at least in my mind, was the value, probably, of any liberal arts education, in that you end up reading a lot, writing a lot, and learning something about the skills required to communicate in the English language. That was the important lesson there. I didn't fully appreciate that at the time. Believe me. Later, I did.

As a person who has taught at the university level, that's exactly what we want for our undergraduates, I think. That ability to think and be able to write and discuss with a cogent argument. What more is there?

Ultimately, that turned out to be a skill, a way of going, that was valuable at Dreyer's. Gary and Rick both are not only appreciators, but they're extraordinarily good at communicating in the English language, written and oral. I have not met many people better than them, in different ways. They have different styles of doing that. But nevertheless, they're extraordinarily good at that. So I graduated in history.

Any sports or clubs or anything you did?

Oh, yeah. I was a sports guy in many dimensions. Still am. In high school, I was the typical football/basketball/baseball kind of athlete.

The three-sport athlete.

Yeah. I was always kind of a middle-of-the-pack guy. Always the middle-ofthe-pack guy. Then in college, I was an intramural athlete, not a college-level athlete. I played more sports in college, broadly. Volleyball, soccer. All those kind of things. I started running. I ran a lot. Started cycling. Cycled a lot. Cycling I still do to this day, and running I did until two years ago, when my orthopedic surgeon said don't do it anymore. So I don't.

It beats the joints.

Yeah. I miss it terribly. It was an important thing at Dreyer's, actually, for me, too, because that was the--

That was the stress relief?

I didn't think of it as stress relief as much as it just fit in with a lot of other people. We had a convenient facility from which we could do those kinds of

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