2014 Gentle Bees was founded after Derrick noticed Mecca’s lips were chapped and wanted to make a lip balm that would withstand the hot temperatures. After researching, he found beeswax as a natural ingredient to make a lip balm. He tinkered with different natural ingredients until he made a product that would satisfy Mecca’s skin and has many healing benefits. That was the original lip balm he created. After creating the original lip balm, he began creating other natural flavored lip balms, all natural beeswax candle tarts, natural soaps with healing properties, sugar scrub, and a sugar wax which both Mecca and Derrick use currently. Mecca was fascinated by the manufacturing process and the aroma so she joined the production team. Derrick’s educational background is chemical engineering at USF in the United States. Mecca’s educational background is Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Iloilo Doctor’s College in the Philippines.

2011 Derrick Frohne founded Frohne while he was in college. He observed a problem with many USB flash drives. Most USB flash drives had one function and that was to save data. With all of his savings, he developed multifunctional computer peripherals such as the Florida Key USB flash drive, eClip USB flash drive, and microSDHC +1. His idea to infuse functionality in each computer peripheral shaped the business. To date, Frohne has customers in 9 countries.

Our mission and reason for Gentle Bees products: We support the honey bees. In fact, many of the country’s crops would not exist without the honey bee at bloom time. Crop yield and quality would significantly abate without honey bee pollination. In 1999, Cornell University study documented that the contribution made by managed honey bees hired by U.S. crop growers to pollinate crops amounted to just over $14.6 billion.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, honey bee workers pollinate 80 percent of our flowering crops, which constitute one-third of everything we eat. Los