Rebekah Iwanyckyj is like many young bench jewelers who cannot take time off from their regular day job to go to full-time school, whether that is a four-year college to study art, design, or metalwork, or attending specialty training at a prestigious institute.
But as a member of the new Signet partnership with the Gemological Institute of America (GIA), Iwanyckyj is part of a new in-house educational program that brings the training and educators right to the bench jewelers. Iwanyckyj, who has been with Signet for about 18 months, hired in as a jewelry apprentice and was promoted to jeweler in about a year.
“I’ve really enjoyed it. It’s nice to be able to work and not have to travel to study,” Iwanyckyj says. “It is definitely rewarding at the end to see how far you’ve come. We’re working on a bar channel set and I’m doing it again now, and I can tell how much progress I’ve made from the first time I tried it.”
Twelve people including Iwanyckyj are part of the inaugural Signet Bench Jeweler Powered by GIA program, and the dozen graduated in mid-September. The program, which takes about six months to complete, is co-facilitated by GIA and two GIA-certified Signet team members, who work with program students in person at Signet’s Akron, Ohio, facility as well as via Zoom-style classes.
Students complete seven-week-long projects, including ring sizing, stone setting, and assembly of basic ring components such as the head and shank, as well as fabrication of a silver cable-link bracelet.
The end goal is to move these students up the ranks as jewelers and prepare them for reaching GIA Graduate Jeweler status if they want to continue, says Adriaan Olivier, senior vice president of strategic diamond sourcing for Signet and lead of Signet Manufacturing in Akron.
This is just the start for such programs at Signet, Olivier adds. Signet has many sites where it has been difficult to find new hires, especially during business surges.
“Part of my motivation was when we came out of the pandemic, consumer demand grew but we didn’t have the depth of bench jewelers to meet what our customers wanted. I never want to be in that position again,” Olivier says. “Scaling this program with the GIA is key—we want to bring people to this location and expand it to other locations.”
The program is for Signet Manufacturing Akron apprentices who need to develop deeper skill sets as well as longtime employees, Olivier explains. People with decades on the bench may hesitate to try new things, and they can experiment and have fun with their craft through a training program like this one, he says.
For the GIA, this program has been a rousing success, says Duncan Pay, who serves as its vice president and chief academic officer. Because the GIA has limited classroom capacity at its headquarters, having partnerships like this one with Signet broadens how many people the GIA and its training can reach.
It was especially gratifying for GIA educators to work in a hybrid fashion with the Signet Akron trainers. The on-site trainers got to know the students through regular in-person interactions, helping the GIA educators from Carlsbad, Calif., to learn more about everyone involved, Pay says.
“Anything we can do that expands our reach and puts more trained bench jewelers into the trade is huge for our mission,” Pay says. “We will continue to look at ways to make this training even better and look for other areas we can teach, like working in platinum. We’re open to ideas and want this to develop and continue.”
Top: These Signet apprentices and bench jewelers in Akron, Ohio, recently completed a new Signet pilot program with the Gemological Institute of America to learn new skills and work toward GIA certification (photos courtesy of Signet).
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