Ernie Trefz admits to being older than 50, but younger than 100. He rises at 6 a.m. and goes to work each day at his 10 Middle St. office in Bridgeport, “15 minutes from my house.” Everyone calls him Ernie.
Trefz”™s full name will soon identify the University of Bridgeport”™s burgeoning business school as the Ernest C. Trefz School of Business. The university”™s Mandeville Hall is being remade for the purpose, to be finished this winter. Current business school Dean Lloyd G. Gibson ”” a former bank executive (and Ph.D.) who took the business school helm last year ”” will remain.
A Nov. 20 ribbon-cutting made the announcement formal. Besides infrastructure, Trefz”™s unspecified-amount donation will support new faculty hires and scholarships.
An expanded online program begins in January. The online MBA ”” which will confer the same MBA as campus classes ”” amplifies a more-modest online/in-class model available now, called blended learning. The new, teched-out building follows that theme, promising borderless education opportunities to complement more traditional learning.
For the 10 a.m. interview that would lead to this reporting, Trefz arrived early. Not idle, he read The Wall Street Journal waiting for others to arrive. He is early by nature, he said. Besides The Wall Street Journal, he reads The New York Times weekends and the Fairfield County Business Journal every week. (His picture graced the cover in 2010.)
His two sons are now principals of the Trefz McDonald”™s Restaurant Group. Christian Carl Trefz is president and Paul Daniel Trefz is vice president.
Trefz of late has scaled back his restaurant holdings so that the four Trefz principals individually own 11 McDonald”™s. The family enterprise employs 1,800 to 1,900, he said. “It”™s a good organization.” His wife, Joan Trefz, and he are also the force behind what Trefz terms “a small foundation” that gives “to those who work with young and needy people,” including small charities and the national United Way. He gives because, “That”™s where the need is,” but he charts a charity”™s administration costs with a sharp pencil.
The new business school will most obviously feature the remade Mandeville Hall. Equally important will be new faculty positions and student scholarships. Without citing specific hires, Gibson said, “There will be expanded faculty and, importantly, they will be practitioners with expertise in business that we will get before the students. This offers a different perspective focused on, step No. 1, graduating; and step No. 2, developing the skills you”™ll need in the future to get a job or start a business. The focus on entrepreneurial skills is very important.
“I don”™t determine policy by sitting in my office, thinking deep thoughts,” Gibson said. “What I hear is that businesses are looking for entrepreneurial skills; they”™re looking for graduates who can think outside the box.”
Trefz, who has supported the school in many ways across 30 years, said talk like that was exactly why he had committed to remake the business school. “It”™s so important,” Trefz said. “What a difference I am seeing. What President (Neil Albert) Salonen sees is a new school and he”™s brought in the right people to make that happen.
“Education is so important, particularly for the needy, for people without opportunities,” Trefz said. “This is another option to get the university involved in that mission.”
Salonen cited the gap in what students need to know vs. what they know and said, “Our commitment is to bring in people who are current for a very different business world.”
Salonen noted Trefz sits on the school”™s finance board, where “They all look to Ernie. His philosophy is, ”˜Hope is not a plan; hope is not a strategy.”™”
Salonen said of Trefz, “He”™s too humble. I can”™t state enough what he is doing here, all that he has done for this university. This groundbreaking means a lot to everyone at this university.”
“This is a big deal,” Trefz said. “I”™m very proud, of course, but I can do without the praise. They”™re over flattering. I believe in what I”™m doing. I believe in the University of Bridgeport. They”™re going in the right direction. I”™m proud to be a part of this.”
Trefz as a boy saw and liked Bridgeport”™s patchwork of ethnicities. That seeming aside factors larger than one might imagine in business school plans.
Trefz”™s father ran a meatpacking business in Bridgeport and the young Ernie tagged along on delivery runs. “Both my mother and father were born in Germany,” he said. “I learned from them. I learned from others. You can never learn enough. And what I learned early ”” that early exposure ”” has been integral to my life.
“With dad in a peddler truck, we drove around the city,” he said. “There was such a diversity, such a beautiful harmony between the various religions and people: Hungarians, Poles, Italians. They were like little cities within the city.
“I still have that love for this city.”
Trefz”™s ethnic memories bear out the business school”™s current realities. Gibson, who spent 28 years in banking, 14 of them as a bank CEO, said globalism is a U.B. ready-made asset. “U.B. has always had a high consensus of international students,” he said. “The most important problems facing the world today are transnational, requiring collaboration with other cultures. We do that on the ground here.”
As for a business school in lieu of a bronze, Trefz said, “A business school is an area I feel comfortable with. It presents opportunities for reaching new levels of economic participation in this city.
“I have a strong feeling about the University of Bridgeport”™s development,” he said. “The university has a lot of minority students. It has a lot of groups forming around being young entrepreneurs.
“I”™d like to do what I can.”
Trefz shared his thoughts seated in the University of Bridgeport”™s administrative offices. President Salonen; Dean Gibson; Mary-Jane Foster, vice president, division of university relations, and Leslie Geary, director of public information and media affairs, joined him.
“First, we needed a beautiful structure,” Trefz said of the new business school building. That work continues apace toward a late-winter finish.
The remade business building will feature the latest technology, including videoconferencing. Trefz identified himself “as low tech as they come,” but sided strongly with the inevitable march of silicon chips: “Our company has all the latest equipment and I have very bright people who run it.”
