Forgive some of the Triangle's top executives if they need to spend a little more time at the gym this week.

About 375 local executives from Bayer CropScience, Progress Energy, RBC Bank, Lord Corp. and other businesses attended the N.C. CEO Forum at the downtown Raleigh Marriott today.

After breakfast, the refreshments during the morning breaks were provided by keynote speakers Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, founders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade. Most attendees helped themselves to Cherry Garcia and other flavors of ice cream and fudge bars.

That followed a cocktail reception and dinner Monday night at Sullivan's Steakhouse in Raleigh's Glenwood South district. Today's lineup also included a catered lunch, more ice cream during afternoon breaks and another reception tonight.

Luckily, the lunch buffet had a few healthy choices: baked chicken, green beans and vegetable lasagna.

"We might have overdone it a bit" on Monday night, Greenfield told the audience to much laughter.

"Having ice cream three times a day isn't endorsed or sanctioned in any way by Ben & Jerry's," he added. "You shouldn't replace more than one meal a day with ice cream."

Greenfield then told the story of starting Ben & Jerry's, going back to when he met Cohen during junior high gym class. They were both struggling to run a mile in seven minutes or less because they were the "two fattest and slowest kids in class."

The aging hippies who founded Ben & Jerry's Homemade ice cream encouraged business leaders to use their positions of power to do more to improve the planet.

"Business is the most powerful force in society today," Jerry Greenfield told more than 350 executives and others at the invitation-only N.C. CEO Forum in downtown Raleigh this morning.

It used to be religion and then government, but business has grown to wield more influence on employees, customers and others, he added. And that makes it ever-more crucial for businesses to take actions that do good while making money.

His partner, Ben Cohen, urged executives to advocate for the federal government to shift its priorities and spend more money to combat problems such as hunger, education and more. The U.S. current spends billions on the military that could easily be reallocated without sacrificing national security.

What would you ask a couple of aging hippie ice cream gurus in 200 words or less?

The organizers of an annual CEO forum next month in Raleigh are holding a contest to encourage business school students to pose creative questions for the keynote speakers, the founders of Ben & Jerry's Homemade.

The "CEOs of Tomorrow" contest ends Friday and is open only to students at the UNC, N.C. State, Duke and Wake Forest business schools. About 200 students have entered so far.

The contest calls for students to enter questions of 200 words or less to Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, who started the iconic ice cream company. Then the public will vote on the finalists' questions.