Martin and Kathleen White, co-owners of Enhancery Jewelers, are retiring after running their business for some 45 years.

In 1978, Martin and Kathleen started Enhancery Jewelers as a young married couple.

At first, the store was in the Rolando area next to a Food Basket grocery store at the time. They originally started with fashion jewelry but expanded to gold and diamonds and added jewelry and watch repairs. At last, they found out that many of their customers had jewelry they no longer wore but wanted to make changes and repurpose. Eventually they became full custom jewelers who are responsible from start to finish.

“The most important value is listening to your customer to determine what they need rather than just trying to sell what you have,” said Kathleen. “We have learned a lot from our customers over the years and always strived to do our best to offer what they wanted.”

They enjoyed supporting many local schools and community organizations, mentioning institutions such as Globe Guilders, Del Cerro Chapter of Rady Children’s Hospital, San Diego Zoo RITZ, San Diego Madres, Soroptimist International of San Diego and La Mesa, and Patrick Henry Grad Night.

Kathleen also described that the best part of their job is getting to know such a diverse group of customers over the years and helping multiple generations of the same family as their legacy jeweler. Additionally, she showed affection to their staffs for being together, Maria, Laura, Brittany, Norma, and other staff members who retired but still come back to help or to shop as customers.

Maria Hopkins, who has been working for Enhancery Jewelers for 25 years as a store manager, is moving into a new chapter as an owner of the shop with her husband Mike. She is enthusiastic to be taking this next step and looks forward to what the future holds.

As Martin and Kathleen have been great role models as business owners, Maria learned a lot about the jewelry industry along with providing training and schooling opportunities. Not only in dealing with customers but also with the many vendors that they deal with on a daily basis, they have shown her how to be an upstanding retailer.

“I am not planning on making any notable changes to the business as I want our customers to continue to feel comfortable and secure knowing that it is still a family jeweler like the one they have been coming to for years,” said Hopkins. “I want to continue providing excellent service and maintain strong relationships with all of our loyal customers and our new customers yet to come.”

After Martin and Kathleen step back from the business, they are going to spend more time with their family and their 18 grandchildren. Moreover, they hope to travel the world for gems.

Kathleen is a gemologist and taught gemology for many years at the San Diego Gem Society and was a board member for the GIA Alumni Association in Carlsbad. Martin graduated with a business degree from San Diego State University.

They have been to Antwerp in Belgium, mines in Brazil, Australia and South Africa, gold factories in Vincenza, Italy to buy direct and learn more about the gems from the source.

For Martin and Kathleen White, they are shining examples of what successful business owners look like.