Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Spreaker | Castbox | Deezer | Podchaser
Or listen on your favorite podcasting platform with our RSS link.
COLORED GEMSTONES and their increasing popularity with younger buyers are the key topics when Doug Hucker, long-time CEO of the American Gem Trade Association (AGTA) is interviewed by host Barbara Palumbo on this month’s The Barb Wire.
Doug starts off by talking about how entered the jewelry business (4:10). His background: after he graduated university, he worked at a newspaper as a writer and photographer. Wanting to leave his hometown, Doug moved to California and started taking pictures of gemstones for the Gemological Institute of America. He ended up spending 10 years at GIA, mostly teaching classes. It was during this period that he really fell in love with gemstones, he shares. “As you know, the more you know about something, the more education you get, the easier it is to fall in love with it,” he says. “Sweaty palms and shortness of breath, I realized that I love gemstones.”
Did he ever work in retail, Barbara asks (9:30). “No comment,” jokes Doug. He clarifies by saying that, in order to provide some context to the work he was doing for GIA, he took an upaid job with a California jewelry retailer on weekends for a period. “You have to have familiarity with retail, or you can’t understand the full picture of this industry,” he explains.
Doug talks about his eventual move to the leadership of AGTA (13:05) in 1997. Before accepting the role, he was worried about having no previous experience leading an association. But, in the end, he feels AGTA turned out to be a perfect fit for him. “It’s been a fantastic career for me,” Doug says, “because I feel I was able to work with fantastic people, in a great industry, and in some ways, I was able to contribute to making the industry better.”
Barbara says she can’t remember, or imagine, the AGTA without Doug. “If the AGTA had money,” she jokes, “your face would be on the currency.”
Doug talks about the importance of volunteers and their contribution to AGTA’s success (17:05), and applauds their passion for colored gemstones.
Next, Barbara and Doug talk about the increasing popularity of colored gemstones with younger buyers (20:10). Barbara notes that, when her group of female friends was in their 20s and starting to get married, competition for the biggest engagement diamond was intense. “You wanted to be the last one to get engaged, because you knew then you could get the biggest diamond,” she says. These days, both Barbara and Doug agree, going for the biggest possible diamond is no longer an automatic choice for younger women who are getting engaged.
One overlooked factor in the rise of colored gemstones amongst younger buyers, according to Doug, is social media (22:50). “Since you have such a visual, colorful world, and you have the technology you have today, it’s perfect for colored gemstones,” he says. “Look at Instagram and Pinterest and all these different platforms where you can see all these pictures of magnificent gemstones and learn the stories, that experience and that story is very important to young people. And it’s very important that we have young people involved.”
Doug and Barbara then talk about the importance of inspiring younger industry members to join industry groups like the AGTA and AGS, as a key factor in helping them to build passion for colored gemstones (25:40).
Another topic of discussion is the AGTA’s move into this year’s big new Las Vegas event, The Collective, at the Las Vegas Convention Center (32:05). AGTA is co-hosting the event along with the Las Vegas Antique Jewelry & Watch Show and Premier. Doug notes that he is proud of the opportunity that the new event provides for younger, upcoming designers, especially at the jewelry-focused Premier show.
Also mentioned are a few special initiatives Collective partners have launched for the show, including vouchers for free Uber rides to and from the event.
Doug shares his favorite gemstone (41:40) as well as his close second place. He then picks a jewelry business figure, alive or dead, he’d most like to have dinner with (43:00). (“Dead is better because you don’t offend anyone who is living,” Doug astutely notes, before sharing his choice.) He then talks about his biggest influence and his biggest fan.
Doug then shares his favorite four-letter industry-related word (50:10). “I think Vegas was betting on that one,” Barbara says, after he reveals his choice.
