Delivering growth through innovation

SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES:  Since taking the helm at Gloria Duchin, Robyn Smalletz has expanded the company's product line to include jewelry and family keepsakes, among other products, gaining market share and adding employees. The company continues to make its products in Rhode Island. Reviewing ornaments with Smalletz, right, are Kate Huot, left, creative manager, and Carole Massey, vice president of product. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO
SEIZING OPPORTUNITIES: Since taking the helm at Gloria Duchin, Robyn Smalletz has expanded the company's product line to include jewelry and family keepsakes, among other products, gaining market share and adding employees. The company continues to make its products in Rhode Island. Reviewing ornaments with Smalletz, right, are Kate Huot, left, creative manager, and Carole Massey, vice president of product. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL SALERNO

For Robyn Smalletz, success is a family business.

Smalletz is the president and CEO of Gloria Duchin Inc., a metal gift and jewelry-designing company started by her mother in 1979. Both her father and husband also have worked at the business, located in East Providence. But it’s Smalletz who has helped turn the family enterprise into a national distributor of collectible items.

“We’ve been through two major recessions, retail consolidations, the Age of the Internet and e-commerce, and a significant shift of domestic manufacturing and offshore competition,” Smalletz said. “But we’re still here, and we have over 100 million copyrighted ornaments in circulation.”

Smalletz joined the sales and marketing division of her mother’s company in the early 1990s, leaving her executive position on Wall Street. Gloria Duchin primarily produced ornaments and engravable products back then, but Smalletz had bigger ambitions.

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“I identified an opportunity for expansion – to take the product line, expand it out and put new collections together,” Smalletz said.

She developed family keepsakes, inspirational products and even pet items, and managed about 100 sales representatives. In 2000, she stepped into the president’s role, eventually adding lines of jewelry and key rings. Today, Gloria Duchin products can be found throughout the nation in Walmart, Sears, Lowe’s, CVS/pharmacy, Rite Aid, Kmart, Target and the Smithsonian stores, among other retailers. The company boasts 150 employees, and saw a 30 percent increase in market share in 2014 alone.

“We really pushed very, very fast and hard,” Smalletz said.

Despite its meteoric rise, Smalletz has stayed true to the company’s values. While other businesses have moved production overseas to save on costs, Gloria Duchin has manufactured all of its products in Rhode Island since the company was founded more than 35 years ago.

That’s required innovation – namely, investing in cutting-edge computer software and manufacturing equipment – but it’s a commitment Smalletz refuses to compromise on.

‘Made in U.S.A.’ is most important to her, and she continues to develop products and finishes that will fit into existing price points to keep the business here in the U.S.,” said Carole Massey, Gloria Duchin’s vice president of product.

Smalletz applies similarly stringent values to the products she sells. She worked with the Jonas Brothers to create a line of jewelry that would benefit diabetes research. Ellen DeGeneres approached the company about designing jewelry with proceeds to help support a pet adoption foundation. And last year, the company collaborated with Fatigues to Fabulous, a nonprofit that helps women veterans make the transition back into civilian life.

“We designed a bracelet and necklace selected by the organization to be worn by these female vets at New York Fashion Week,” Smalletz said. “Partial proceeds went back to support Fatigues to Fabulous, and Walmart picked them up to sell online.”

Yet even after years’ of success, one of Smalletz’s greatest joys is pleasing her mother.

“For me to be able to say to her that last year we had a 30 percent increase in market share, she says ‘Thumbs up, Robyn, that’s fantastic!’ It’s a great personal accomplishment and a great professional accomplishment.”•

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