Panowicz Jewelers

Dec 2

In their own words

“The thing about jewelry is that it’s a small item given with great intent and meaning. It can help you convey everything you can’t articulate and put into words with a small token. I wear my grandmother’s diamond around my neck and always have her with me. I remember that exact moment that I got her diamond and everything surrounding it. Every piece of jewelry I have, I can remember who gave it to me, or when I purchased it for myself—the feeling, the moment.”

-Leslie Panowicz

Jason’s Interview with Leslie

Jason

Come with me to Meet the Jewelers. What a treat to be talking to Leslie Panowicz from Panowicz Jewelers.

Leslie

Good morning from sunny Olympia, Washington.

Our store was founded by my grandfather, Anton Panowicz, who grew up in the farm country in Nebraska. After World War II, he was at Fort Lewis. Back in those days, they didn't have enough housing for soldiers, so he lived with a community member who had a watch repair shop. He gave my grandpa and his fourteen farm fingers jobs doing watch repair. The story goes that as they settled here and fell in love with the community, and started having children, my grandpa realized how much his boys were eating and that he should probably start his own company so that he could feed them. That was a little tiny store that did watch repair and sold gifts and jewelry. My Dad was employed from a young age. His first job was to wash the window—that’s singular, one window—and take out the trash.

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Fast forward and we continue to grow, expand, and find our place in the community. My Dad joined the military and did some years of service, and then got his CPA and MBA from the University of Washington, and worked for Deloitte at the time for a few years.

He came back and partnered with my grandpa and they ran the store together. Meanwhile, my Dad was still serving as a Reservist in the Navy and did that simultaneously throughout his career. In the `80s, my Dad allowed my grandpa to transition into retirement and continued to build the store. We moved in 2000 to where we're at now, the market center, which is our largest location. We have three goldsmiths and we employ seventeen full-time employees.

I was never going to be in the jewelry industry, I wasn't interested at all. I wanted to make a difference, so I went to college and came out with a social work background. I came home to Olympia, did social work in our community for about ten years.

Decided I was ready for a change and was thinking about law school. My Dad sweetly offered that I could have a temporary job here at the store in the accounting office while I figured out what I really wanted to do. Twenty years later, I'm still here.

Jason
What is it about jewelry that you love so much?

Leslie
It's really the symbolism of jewelry as a means to connect with people. I often joke that this is social work, except instead of celebrating that nobody's in jail, now we're celebrating that people are getting engaged, or got a job promotion, or getting married, or honoring their loved ones. Jewelry is a small item given with great intent and meaning. It can help you convey everything that you can't articulate and put into words with a small token. I wear my grandmother's diamond around my neck and I always have her with me. I remember that exact moment that I got her diamond and everything surrounding it. In fact, every piece of jewelry that I have I can remember who gave it to me, when I purchased it for myself, the feeling, the moment. And so that's what I love about it. It's helping our customers do that and touch everybody in their lives with tokens that are lasting and of quality.

Jason
What's the experience like when somebody comes inside your store now?

Leslie
That they're an old friend. Whether they’ve just come in our store for the first time, or they've been coming to us for generations, our job is to help them commemorate the celebrations of their lives. We want to always honor and welcome everybody who comes into our store, whether it's for repairing a cherished heirloom or finding a new purchase. We do a lot of custom work, taking old metal and old gemstones and recreating something that's to the liking of the recipient or the person who will be wearing it, but incorporating those older pieces into something new.

Jason
That passion and integrity doesn't just happen for your customers, but also for the community. I want to talk about the charitable acts that your team has been able to do throughout the years. If you can, please highlight two or three of them.

Leslie
I don't ever say no to a charitable request. The amount we give varies. It's something that I personally love doing, and it's the history of my family giving back and participating, having gratitude for the community that we live in that provides our living to us.

Jason
Can you talk to us about that big charitable giving that you did with Guy Fieri?

Leslie
St. Martin's University is one of the groups that we help on an annual basis. They have been very innovative in their fundraising plan and they have a Top Chef dinner. Guy Fieri has come to that and cooked dinner for their audience and actually trained a crew of chefs to give everyone in the audience that same experience of a five-course meal cooked by Guy Fieri. Guy is so great. He’s personable and always wants to help. He's connected the university with other chefs. Since then, they've had the entire cast of The Chew on. Carla Hall came last year. It’s a phenomenal event and we're honored to be a little part of that.

We support Boys and Girls Club, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, Habitat for Humanity. Pretty much anything that has to do with giving youth an opportunity. The art scene, definitely music, symphony. Schools, of course. The list goes on, but I'll stop there.

Jason
When somebody's deciding, “Should I work with you? Should I not work with you?”, why do you think they choose the Panowiczs?

Leslie
I think they choose us because of our longevity and reputation. We hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity and customer care. We try to have the highest quality and the highest standard at a really fair price, every day. My dad always says all we have is our name and we've had seventy years strong of that.

Jason
And this is just the beginning. This is your chance to say whatever you like to Meet the Jewelers. Go for it!

Leslie
I would welcome you into our store. We’re in Olympia, Washington, the state capital makes for a fun afternoon. We will clean and polish your jewelry, and you can play dress up and just have fun when you need a happy fix. We have full-service repair. One fun thing is we do watch batteries by donation. So just one of the other ways that we give back. So, come meet our team.