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THE MIX Wednesday, March 29, 2006 —I— J 1 ■ ^ -A- T 1 4 m Page 9 • Dunstan Pnal THE RECORD HACKENSACK, N.J. — “Chew more. Do more.” That’s the motto of Kevin Gass and Laurence Molloy, co-founders of Hackensack, N.J.-based gum makef GumRunners LLC. The two have apparently taken their own advice because they’ve been doing a lot lately. In January 2003 no store carried GumRunners’ premier product — Jolt, a • caffeine-infused energy gum. Now the gum is carried in between 40,000 and 45,000 stores nationwide, and it is scheduled to debut at Target in March. And earlier this year GumRunners introduced Nutra-Trim Gum, intended to curb chewers’ appetites and help keep the pounds nft A $3.4 billion business in the United States alone, according to the National Confectioners Association, the industry is dominated ^ftby two main players — Wrigley and Cadbury Adams, which together account for about half of all domestic gum sales. Gass and Molloy both quit well-paying marketing jobs with large consumer products companies to pursue their dream of creating their own company. As a result of their experience they knew that in order to carve a profitable niche for themselves they would need to offer •something innovative. That was the genesis of Jolt energy gum. “It’s the difference between innovation and simple activity,” Gass said. Innovation, he explained, is creating an entirely new product, one that generates a new customer base and therefore creates an entirely new stream of revenues for retailers. Simple activity, in the gum industry at least, means doing little more than recycling flavors, he said. Gass, 39, and Molloy, 40, have a lot of experience gauging what products might entice new customers. The two men first met in 1992 when both were rising marketing executives, Gass with Colgate Palmolive and Molloy with Mennen. Within a month of meeting they were daydreaming about going out on their own. “Every marketer’s dream is to have their own. company,” Molloy said. Gass added, “We yearned to be free. We saved up and saved up and saved up, and gained experience.” Finally, in 1999, they were ready to stop talking about it. Gass, who was and is single, said risk and innovation seem to go hand in hand. Molloy had slightly more at stake at the time. Newly married, he had recently learned that his wife was expecting twins. Glim • 10 Special to THE GAMECOCK Kevin Gass and Laurence Molloy, formerly employed in marketing, started GumRunners in 1999. The company makes Jolt, an “energy gum” with caffeine, and Nutra-Trim, a gum that claims to suppress appetite and promote weight loss. Hello, my name is Grayson Mathis First-year finance student WHAT IS SOMETHING INTERESTING ABOUT YOUR HOMETOWN? “Aiken is a small town where religion and moral fiber ring through all the hearts and souls of the good people.” WHY DID YOU CHOOSE TO COME TO SOUTH CAROLINA? “It is the greatest institute of higher learning in this country and Clemson smells like agricultural waste.” WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE BOOK? “’Ulysses’ by James Joyce, because we analyze the psyche of James’ protagonist and through his daily life we better understand ourselves.” IF YOU COULD BE A SUPERHERO, WHAT WOULD YOUR NAME BE AND WHAT SUPERPOWERS WOULD YOU HAVE? “I would like to be The Ghost so that I could be invisible and sneak up on HELLO • 10 Shark gathering intrigues scientists Research explores why particular location attracts lemon sharks W Stephen Deere SOUTH FLORIDA SUN SENTINEL FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — For a man who had spent a lifetime researching sharks, what Samuel Gruber saw diving four years ago off the Jupiter Inlet was nothing short of a religious experience. About 100 adult lemon sharks hovered over the ocean floor in about 90 feet of water. Throughout his 40-plus ^fc/ear career, Gruber had ^^seen a total of maybe 15 or 20 adult lemon sharks, distinguished by their yellowish brown tint and dual dorsal fins. “In one day I saw more adults by a power of five than I have in my whole career,” said Gruber, 67, who has visited the site between December and March every year since. Nowhere else in the world does such a phenomenon exist, Gruber said. And Gruber, among the world’s leading authorities on sharks, has been trying to answer a simple question: What brings them here? Gruber’s initial theory is that female sharks are emitting chemical signals called pheromones that attract male sharks. But why they’ve chosen this particular spot to conduct their courtship remains a mystery. Does it have something to do with a combination of the currents, water temperature and salinity? This year, getting closer to those answers proved more difficult. Not nearly as many sharks showed up. The number of sharks fluctuates from year to year, Gruber said, and he’s confident that more sharks will return. “You have good years and you have bad years,” he said. Next winter, he hopes to start testing his theory. He plans on collecting water samples around some of the female sharks and testing the water chemistry or possibly extracting urine samples from the females. Juvenile lemon sharks are relatively easy to study. They congregate in nurseries in bays or lagoons. They prefer the safety and plentiful food supplies at mangroves and in warm shallow waters, Such as those at the Bimini Biological Field Station, about 50 miles east of Miami, width Gruber owns and runs. But once the sharks reach about three years old, they vanish. “We really don’t know anything about the adult phase,” said Tristan Guttridge, one of Gruber’s principal investigators. Guttridge, 23, of Leeds, England, is planning on writing his doctoral dissertation on the shark gathering. Because so many gather SHARK • II v Joe Amort / KRT Grant Johnson, left, drives home a Casey tag near the dorsal fin, as doctoral student Bryan Franks prepares to record basic information on a male lemon shark. 70s Earth-focused ideas still draw eager readers ‘Then peace will guide the planets, and love will steer the stars. This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius.' KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS TOPEKA, Kan. — Well, that didn’t work out like it was supposed to. The 1968 tune from the musical “Hair”, seems as* dated as the Summer of Love in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Hippies. Communes. Protests. The era’s reputation over the years sunk so low that Elvis Costello tried to come to its rescue in a song, asking, “What’s so funny about peace, love and understanding?” So it may come as a surprise that an icon of those times is still with us. Going strong, in fact. But don’t look for its home on the West Coast. Instead, head to Topeka. There, in an industrial park across the street from the Martin Tractor dealership, you will find a beige building with white trim that since 2001 has been the headquarters of Mother Earth News. Mother, as its fans call it, has 330,000 subscribers who can still find stories to satisfy their interests in the environment, self-sufficiency and healthy living. Open a recent issue of the magazine and you will find topics ranging from wood fired hot tubs to the benefits of eating eggs from chickens that are free to roam. It is, the magazine says on every cover, the original auide to living wisely. But in other ways, it has changed with the times. A serious business approach, including a savvy use of the Internet, helps boost the bottom line. The tone has been tweaked as well. Gone are the days when civilization was called a “lunatic asylum” and capitalism a “con game.” CRRTH • 10 >