Verve founder advocate for sustainability

THE RIGHT FIT: Deborah Schimberg, right, owner and head of Verve Inc., which makes Glee Gum and other confections, discusses product packaging with Molly Lederer, director of communications and marketing. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO
THE RIGHT FIT: Deborah Schimberg, right, owner and head of Verve Inc., which makes Glee Gum and other confections, discusses product packaging with Molly Lederer, director of communications and marketing. / PBN PHOTO/ MICHAEL SALERNO

Entrepreneurial by nature, Deborah Schimberg did not foresee while studying comparative literature in the late 1970s at Brown University that she would eventually found and run a company that makes chewing gum from sustainable ingredients.

“I really liked languages,” recalled Schimberg. “I didn’t have a vision of what I was going to do after college. But I like to take things from the idea stage and make them happen: to be creative.”

Born in Cincinnati, Schimberg, 58, is founder, president and CEO of the Providence-based company Verve Inc., which makes Glee Gum, using a natural base called chicle found in South America, as well as candy kits for chocolate, chewing gum and gummies.

Underlying most of the work Schimberg has done, both before and after Verve, is a commitment to sustainability. In fact, it is that concern and value that led her in 1980, when she graduated from Brown, to buy an abandoned house in South Providence with two friends and make an effort to transform the property.

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Bought with $1,000, the 4,500-square-foot home eventually became the headquarters for an initiative Schimberg helped found, the Southside Community Land Trust.

Seeing potential where others saw blight, Schimberg served as director of the land trust until 1991. As part of a three-year fellowship from the Kellogg National Leadership Development Program through the foundation, Schimberg began to focus more on sustainable government, as well as self-governing schools.

From 1991 to 1994, she traveled to Guatemala at different points, and learned about the natural gum base chicle, whose harvesting contributed to that country’s ability to sustain the forests where it could be found.

Figuring out how to start a gum company and compete with established manufacturers proved a challenge, Schimberg said. She was going to abandon the idea, until a friend came over and suggested making a kit for kids who could make their own gum, since it’s not complicated once you have the ingredients.

In 1995, she started Verve and sold kits in toy stores across the country.

In 1998, the company began producing the gum as well. Schimberg found a contract manufacturer willing to make gum using a formula she developed with natural ingredients and flavors. While not able to break into mass distribution, Verve was able to sell the product in health food stores, she said.

By 2001, husband Kevin Neel was running the company as chief operating officer and meeting product-distribution needs. Target picked up distribution about that time, she said, which proved lucky since before that they were packaging orders by hand.

In 2001, she moved in another direction that had grown out of the fellowship: founding the International Charter School in Pawtucket.

When she earned her master’s degree in education from Harvard in 1996, she also obtained a teaching certificate and principal’s certificate and taught as a long-term substitute in Providence schools. In early 1999, she took a position as principal in an environmentally oriented school in Costa Rica.

She returned to the United States from Costa Rica in mid-2000, taught for a year then got hired to start the charter school for two years.

Schimberg seized the opportunity to develop the Pawtucket school.

“I consider myself a generalist and am interested in education in a variety of different ways,” she said. “I was always thinking as a teacher, ‘If I was only the principal, I could make such a difference.’ ”

Schimberg also is excited by the term “social entrepreneur” and identifies with it.

“All of us need to be social entrepreneurs in the sense that activities we take on are economically sustainable and delivering a public good,” she said. “I don’t think you can have just one or the other and be successful. You need both.”

In 2015, the U.S. Small Business Administration awarded Verve Woman-owned Small Business of the Year in Rhode Island.

While Schimberg has found a way to balance work and home life, she regrets not making a formal business plan 20 years ago or being thoughtful about which direction to move in next. Verve might have grown more with a more-focused approach, she said.

She plans for Verve to introduce new product lines, as well as step up its marketing and increase distribution in the U.S., Canada and next, Europe.

“You can’t stand still,” she said. “There is so much interest in natural confectionary and snacks. We’re well-positioned to take advantage of that. It’s a middle-class audience that is really paying attention to natural ingredients in confectionary goods.” •

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