photos courtesy of ECPI, and family members
When Alfred Dreyfus entered a room at ECPI University’s Virginia Beach headquarters, people lit up. Administrators, instructors, students—the response seemed universal.
“I remember how everyone looked at him with this incredible admiration,” says ECPI vice president of strategic initiatives, Sam Dreyfus, speaking of his grandfather. You could tell he “truly cared about people and wanted them to be as successful as they could possibly be.”
Alfred Dreyfus founded ECPI in 1966 in Norfolk, on the fourth floor of the Janaf office building, with a reception area, two offices, two classrooms and eight students. By the time of his death at the age of 100 this past October, the company had grown to include 16 locations in five states, national online degree programs, and graduated more than 110,000 students.
“My grandfather worked extremely hard and stayed engaged essentially to the very end,” says Sam Dreyfus. Alfred Dreyfus sat on ECPI’s board of directors until age 96. “He believed passionately in the university’s mission and the work we do here, and I think that sense of purpose is what enabled him to live such a long and full life.”
And yet, the fact that Dreyfus survived long enough to achieve any form of personal success was nothing short of miraculous.
The education pioneer grew up in Germany in a well-to-do Jewish family that owned a large, third-generation box-making factory. Dreyfus was 10 when Adolf Hitler came into power in 1933 and his parents soon fled to France to escape the impending Nazi persecution. Life as Jewish refugees was tough, though, and it only got worse when World War II broke out in 1939. The next six years were marked by perpetual moves, omnipresent terror, constant hiding, periodic separations, and razor thin escapes from the Gestapo and aerial bombing raids. Each of the Dreyfus’s five family members endured multiple interments at forced refugee labor camps in both France and Switzerland.
“We were not free,” said Dreyfus in a personal history recorded for the University of Southern California’s Shoah Foundation. “The food was insufficient and we were always hungry. We were forced to work hard in snow, ice and, later, in ankle-deep mud. We boys fared better than my father, whose health was broken by all the years of worry and incarceration.”
Though destitute, the family managed to survive the war. With nowhere to go, Dreyfus chose to start a new life in the U.S. He arrived in New York City in 1947 with $14 and a single suitcase to his name—and next to no knowledge of the English language. But living under the ceaseless threat of death had made him tenacious.
Dreyfus as a young radio electrician
“He was able to get work fixing radios as a radio technician,” says Sam Dreyfus, a skill Alfred Dreyfus routinely described himself as having been “lucky enough to pick up” while studying with the Jewish vocational training group Organization for Rehabilitation through Training (ORT) just after the war’s end.
Dreyfus taught himself English and spent countless hours reading about business and emerging technology trends in New York libraries. He worried about the reliability of working for other people “and wanted to find a way to provide for his family independently,” says Sam Dreyfus.
The eureka moment came as Alfred Dreyfus began to climb the workplace ladder and was confounded by the company’s struggles to hire and retain skilled technicians. Meanwhile, exhaustive reading around computerization convinced him the machines would fundamentally change the world.
Though he’d had very little formal education since 1933, Dreyfus “felt profoundly grateful” for the skills that had enabled him to gain a foothold in America, says Sam Dreyfus. “He was driven by a vision to open doors for those who, like him, once faced limited options. His empathy fueled his determination to create new opportunities for others.”
Alfred Dreyfus envisioned a school that, on one hand, focused on equipping students with the skills and certifications they needed to succeed in high-demand fields and trades. He also wanted to build relationships with great companies and create jobs pipelines that connected graduates with readymade employers.
“He took deep pride in not only achieving that goal, but dramatically expanding it in scope,” says Sam Dreyfus. Alfred Dreyfus worked long hours and poured as much money as possible back into his business. “He never sought the spotlight or indulged in extravagance—there was no big house, no lavish lifestyle. It was just his family, the students and him quietly going about his work.”
Dreyfus’s son, Mark, who is ECPI’s current president, says that it was his father’s commitment and love for the university’s mission that ensured its success. And that sincerity endeared him to his employees, colleagues, students, and family members alike.
“He had the important ability to be able to sacrifice a lot to build his dream,” Mark Dreyfus told attendees at his father’s memorial service. ECPI was ‘his baby.’ He was committed to each and every student. For decades, he was the proudest person in the room at every graduation ceremony—I only hope we can continue my father’s legacy with the dignity, humility, and forethought that he exemplified.”
Alfred Dreyfus, founder, ECPI
