DURHAM, N.H. - The University of New Hampshire Center for Family Business and the CEO Forum will jointly host "The Story Behind Gifford's Ice Cream: A Long and Winding Road from Past to Present" Thursday, May 17, 2012.

The program begins at 9 a.m. at Huddleston Hall in Durham. Coffee and networking begins at 8 a.m. and a full buffet breakfast will be served at 8:30 a.m.

Gifford's Ice Cream owns five seasonal ice cream stands and sells 1.6 million gallons of ice cream every year. Since its founding, the business has been sold three times, yet has remained a family business for five generations of the Gifford family.

At this event, Roger Gifford, CEO of Gifford's Ice Cream, will discuss how the company has responded to changes in the market for ice cream and why the company decided to return to producing and marketing premium ice cream. He also will discuss how the company is transitioning operations to the next generation of Giffords.

To register or become a member of the UNH CEO Forum or Center for Family Business, call Barbara Draper at 603-862-1107, or e-mail her at barbara.draper@unh.edu

Initiated in 1997, the UNH CEO Forum is an outreach program of the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics and the UNH Graduate School serving CEOs, presidents, and senior managers of companies in northern New England. The forum provides its members with opportunities to meet and exchange ideas with their peers in business and industry in an informal setting. The UNH CEO Forum is sponsored by the law firm of Pierce Atwood, People's United Bank, Sprague Energy, Crystalvision, and Berry, Dunn, McNeil and Parker. For more information about the CEO Forum, visit http://www.unh-ceoforum.org/

The Center for Family Business, under the UNH Whittemore School of Business and Economics and the UNH Graduate School, is sponsored by Mass Mutual Financial Group; Moitoza Consulting; Baker Newman & Noyes; Pierce Atwood; Management Planning, Inc.; and Optima Bank and Trust. It is a membership program to provide owners and managers of entrepreneurial businesses with an opportunity to exchange ideas and information and to discuss business challenges, concerns, and solutions. For more information, visit http://www.familybusiness.unh.edu/.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 12,200 undergraduate and 2,300 graduate students.

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