Alexander Wallace Dreyfoos Jr. (March 22, 1932 – May 28, 2023)[1] was an American businessman and philanthropist based in West Palm Beach, Florida, and Saranac Lake, New York.
[4] Having also completed ROTC, Dreyfoos then served in the U.S. Air Force in Sembach, Germany, 1954–1956, commanding a 40-man photo lab critical to reconnaissance missions at age 22.
[3] Dreyfoos founded Photo Electronics Corporation (PEC) in 1963, with George W. Mergens, to address problems in color print reproduction.
They developed their groundbreaking Video Color Negative Analyzer (VCNA) in Dreyfoos’ Port Chester, New York basement, then set up a factory in a former church in Connecticut.
Beginning in 1977, under his direction, his staff developed the world-class Sailfish Marina Resort in Palm Beach Shores, Florida, which he sold in 2004.
[13] To address his wife Renate's motion sickness, Dreyfoos helped to design their unique SWATH yacht Silver Cloud built by Abeking & Rasmussen in Lemwerder, Germany.
[14] In 2015 Silver Cloud completed the circumnavigation of the world after Dreyfoos went to extreme measures to travel safely through terrorist-controlled waters.
[17][18] With his financial commitment at its launch in 1998, Dreyfoos became the first founding member of the marine conservation organization International SeaKeepers Society.
In 2013 the MIT Corporation named the auditorium atop its Media Lab Complex in Dreyfoos’ honor for years of service.