- April 25, 2024
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Owner Jim Stradley used to love working outside, but there was one drawback: He was nearly struck by lightning on four separate occasions.
BY WAYNE GRANT | STAFF WRITER
The day after Jim Stradley and his wife, Marty's, wedding, he whisked her off to Mauritius, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, to start a gem-cutting business. It was the first of many times she would follow as he chased his dreams.
“We were there for two years and then the government became Marxist and invited us to leave,” Stradley said.
Other Stradley dreams included running a gem-cutting business in Denver and working as a missionary in Haiti, where he built an elementary school and orphanage, dug 72 water wells and taught the local citizens to make beads from local material to sell as trade.
He also earned two engineering degrees along the way and worked a variety of jobs, such as payroll manager at the University of Denver.
“He’s one of those guys who still don’t know what they want to do when they grow up,” said his daughter, Sophie Stradley.
Now, Jim Stradley says he’s going to follow his wife’s dream.
“She said she always wanted to go into business with me,” Stradley said.
The couple opened Pearls International, in Daytona Beach Shores, five years ago and have now branched out, opening a store Nov. 15 in Granada Plaza, at 177 E. Granada Blvd.
Stradley said the store is his wife’s to run.
“This is her game. I told her I’m going to be in the workshop,” he said.
His daughter says Stradley introduced her to the wonder of gems at an early age.
“Many years ago, we were hiking and he looked down and picked up the ugliest rock you ever saw,” she said. “It was a smoky quartz. He polished it and cut the facets and turned it into a beautiful gem stone.”
Jim Stradley now has turned his attention to designing pearl jewelry for the family business. Each piece is an original creation.
“I started making pearl jewelry and made so much for my wife she was draped in it,” he said. “She said we should open a store.”
Pearls come not only in different shapes but also several colors. Stradley said the natural colors are all shades of gray, black, white, peach, lavender and pink, depending on the oyster species. They can be enhanced with radiation for blue or green or even dyed. There are also black peacock pearls that pick up the color of a person’s clothing.
The Stradleys carry pearls from all over the world.
“We have a big name and a little shop," Sophie Stradley said.
She said they believe Granada Plaza will be a good location.
“There is great foot traffic here," she said.
Stradley’s outdoor life, whether working on hillsides in Haiti or the mountains of Colorado looking for minerals, had one drawback: He has been very close to lightning strikes four times.
While holding onto a well-drilling rod in Haiti, driving across a magnetite field in Colorado, leaning on a metal threshold in Miami in a storm and driving a VW up the side of a mountain, he felt his hair stand up, heard a crash and saw bright licks of electricity all around.
“It’s a big bang, as loud as a gunshot, and a great adrenaline rush,” he said.
But work also brings adrenaline.
“He just won’t stop,” his daughter said.
“What happens when you retire?” Stradley asked. “You get fat and die.”
