When two UD students strolled into Berkshire-Hathaway Inc.’s Omaha garage with legendary financier Warren Buffett on April 18, they noticed a tan Lincoln Town Car parked a little askew. Buffett, the second-richest man in the world, jumped into the driver’s seat of the car (with the vanity plates reading THRIFTY), and chauffeured the students to a favorite local steakhouse.

One of those students was Walter Reinfeld, BE ’06, who had approached Buffett at a Coca-Cola stockholders’ meeting in Delaware last year and was the driving force behind the trip that brought 28 members of the Blue Hen Investment Club and two faculty members face-to-face with the “Oracle of Omaha.”

The investment club, most of whose members are finance majors in the Lerner College of Business and Economics, manages a portion of the University’s endowment fund. Members emphasize fundamental and technical analysis in order to take part in the valuable educational experience of handling a real-dollar investment portfolio.

Buffett, worth $42 billion, treated the students to his trademark steak-potato-and-Coke lunch at the restaurant in Omaha.

“The students here got to meet a person who really has devoted his life to looking at, in a sense, undervalued companies and studying them and, through analysis and hard work, has obviously made some prudent decisions,” said James B. O’Neill, the economics professor who serves as the investment club’s faculty adviser. “But, I think the other side of Mr. Buffett is that you have a very personable, down-to-Earth businessman.”

Reinfeld, who graduated in May and joined the DuPont Co.’s finance and accounting division, said he was impressed by Buffett’s straightforward manner, his openness and his willingness to share his time with students.