Our History

Alexander W. Dreyfoos (1932–2023) was chairman and owner of The Dreyfoos Group, a private capital management firm that grew out of the success of Photo Electronics Corporation (PEC), a company Mr. Dreyfoos formed with George W. Mergens in 1963 to manufacture electronic equipment for the photographic industry, and from the sale of his controlling interest in WPEC TV-12, the CBS television affiliate in West Palm Beach, Florida, which he owned from 1973 to 1996. Mr. Dreyfoos passed away peacefully in May 2023, leaving behind an extraordinary legacy of innovation, philanthropy, and civic leadership.

Mr. Dreyfoos earned a Bachelor of Science degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1954, where he was active in the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity and completed the ROTC program. After serving in the United States Air Force in Germany as a captain managing a photo reconnaissance laboratory, he earned an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1958 under the GI Bill.

An inventor, Mr. Dreyfoos held ten United States patents and numerous foreign patents in the fields of electronics and photography, many jointly with George Mergens. Prior to founding his own company, he was employed by Technicolor NY Corporation and later served as a development engineer at IBM’s Advanced System Development Division.

Photo Electronics Corporation designed and manufactured the digital image processing Professional Video Analyzing Computer (PVAC), used by color laboratories to produce high-quality color photographs. An earlier version, the Video Color Negative Analyzer (1964), was selected by the Smithsonian Institution in 1990 for inclusion in its permanent exhibit The Information Age: People, Information and Technology. In 1970, PEC received an Academy Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for its development of a motion picture version of the VCNA.

PEC also invented the LaserColor Printer, which produced exceptionally high-quality electronically generated color prints from color slides marketed as LaserColor Prints.

From 1977 until 2004, The Dreyfoos Group owned and operated the Sailfish Marina, a marina-restaurant-motel in Palm Beach Shores that docked one of the largest charter fishing fleets in South Florida.

Mr. Dreyfoos was instrumental in forming and served as the first chairman of the Palm Beach County Council of the Arts, now the Palm Beach County Cultural Council. In 1982, the Council mounted a successful referendum creating a “bed tax” that continues to fund local arts initiatives. Beginning in 1978, he spearheaded efforts to build a world-class performing arts center in Palm Beach County and served as chairman of the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts through fifteen successful seasons, concluding in June 2007. He remained a lifetime member of the board. The $58 million, 2,189-seat multipurpose facility opened fully funded in September 1992, when the board named the concert hall in Mr. Dreyfoos’s honor. In 2003, the Kravis Center completed a $31 million expansion under his leadership.

Mr. Dreyfoos was a Life Member Emeritus of the MIT Corporation and served on several MIT Visiting Committees, including Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences and the Media Laboratory, which he chaired for nearly a decade. The Alexander W. Dreyfoos Building at MIT, part of the Stata Center designed by Frank Gehry, resulted from his largest single philanthropic gift of $15 million. The Dreyfoos Chair at MIT’s Media Lab continues to honor his commitment to innovation and education.

In 1997, Mr. Dreyfoos made the largest private contribution ever made to a public school in Florida when he pledged $1 million to support Palm Beach County’s public arts magnet high school, which was subsequently named in his honor. The Alexander W. Dreyfoos School of the Arts offers concentrations in communications, dance, music, theatre, and visual arts, with admission determined solely by artistic talent through an audition process. Its graduates are consistently accepted into top colleges and universities.

In February 2004, Mr. Dreyfoos was elected to the board of trustees of The Scripps Research Institute. With grants exceeding $500 million from the State of Florida and Palm Beach County, Scripps established a major biomedical research campus in Jupiter, Florida, which opened in February 2009. The entrance lobby was named in honor of Renate and Alex Dreyfoos.

In October 2004, Mr. Dreyfoos was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He also served as a Governor-appointed member of the Florida Council of 100 and was a founding member, director, and former chairman of the Economic Council of Palm Beach County. He was a founding member of The International SeaKeepers Society and participated in numerous executive leadership organizations. For seven years, until mandatory retirement, he served on the board of FPL Group, Inc. In 2006, he was elected to the board of trustees of the Henry Morrison Flagler Museum.

In 2012, Mr. Dreyfoos was elected a Trustee of the Max Planck Institute of Neuroscience in Jupiter, Florida.

Throughout his lifetime, Mr. Dreyfoos received numerous honors recognizing his civic, philanthropic, and entrepreneurial impact, including Palm Beach Post Business Leader of the Year, Junior Achievement Business Hall of Fame, the Ellis Island Medal of Honor, the Woodrow Wilson Award for Corporate Citizenship, and multiple lifetime achievement awards. In 2007, Palm Beach County and the City of West Palm Beach proclaimed March 23 as Alexander W. Dreyfoos Day.

Mr. Dreyfoos lived in West Palm Beach, Florida, with his wife Renate. Together, they shared a passion for travel and exploration, spending time aboard their vessel Silver Cloud and in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. He was a devoted father and grandfather and maintained a lifelong enthusiasm for aviation, photography, sailing, scuba diving, and amateur radio.

Alexander W. Dreyfoos’ vision, generosity, and belief in the transformative power of the arts and education continue to shape Palm Beach County and institutions around the world. His legacy endures through the countless lives, students, and communities he inspired.

1 See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WPEC
2 See https://www.freepatentsonline.com/3351707.pdf
3 See https://www.sailfishmarina.com/
4 See http://web.mit.edu/corporation/members/Dreyfoos-A.html;
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1998/dreyfoos.html;
https://web.media.mit.edu/~pattie/
5 See http://www.scripps.edu/newsandviews/e_20060522/
6 See http://www.YachtSilverCloud.com/