Verve founder has ‘green’ outlook

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 FILE 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 FILE PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

While studying comparative literature at Brown University in the late 1970s, Deborah Schimberg didn’t envision founding a company that makes chewing gum from sustainable ingredients.

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

Born in Cincinnati, Schimberg is founder, president and CEO of Providence-based Verve Inc., which makes Glee Gum, a product that uses a natural base called chicle.

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 for $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.

From 1991 to 1994, she traveled to Guatemala at different points as part of Kellogg National Leadership Development Program fellowship. While in the country, she 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 suggested making a kit for kids who could make their own gum.

In 1995, she started Verve and sold kits in toy stores across the country. Three years later, the company began producing the gum.

By 2001, husband Kevin Neel was chief operating officer. Target picked up distribution about that time, she said.

Schimberg also has a great interest in education. In the 1990s, she served as a long-term substitute in the Providence school system. In 1999, she took a role as principal at a school in Costa Rica. When she returned in the mid-2000s, she taught for a few years and eventually founded the International Charter School in Pawtucket.

As for Verve – which was named the 2015 Woman-owned Small Business of the Year in Rhode Island by the U.S. Small Business Administration – Schimberg plans to introduce new product lines, as well as step up its marketing and increase distribution in the U.S., Canada and next, Europe. •

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