Bryan Boyne – Senior Gemologist

Bryan Boyne is the senior gemologist at Whiteflash and also company Vice President in charge of communications and education. Bryan joined Whiteflash in 2009 through acquisition of his online company Gemdiamond.com. He has enjoyed a career in the jewelry industry that spans many decades affording him a diverse range of expertise including colored gemstones, pearls, fine jewelry design and manufacturing, business management, company culture building, content creation, and of course diamonds.

Bryan’s first job out of college was as a professional baseball player in the San Francisco Giants farm system. He played pro ball for three seasons after graduating from Rice University where he earned a BA in Political Science and was a 4 year starter at shortstop for the Rice Owls baseball team.

But his greatest accomplishment in the sport came at the tender age of 12 when he was the shortstop on the 1966 World Champion baseball team from his neighborhood Little League, Westbury American, in Houston, Texas. In a recently published book by Brad Groghan rating the top 100 baseball teams in Texas history (all levels), Bryan’s little league team was named #1 and graces the cover of the book!

Bryan was introduced to the jewelry business in the 1970’s by his mother Elsye Boyne who took a job behind a jewelry counter when her youngest son went to college. She had such an affinity for the jewelry business that she was soon recruited by the owner of a chain of jewelry stores based in Hawaii specializing in jade and pearls to open a store in Houston’s famed Galleria shopping center. She eventually became the mainland supervisor for 12 stores in the chain (Ming’s), managing the openings of several of them and training the staff. By the time Bryan was traveling the country playing professional baseball, Elsye had started her own business mining rough jade in Guatemala and importing various minerals and gemstones from Mexico. She was a true pioneer in the field as one of the few women entrepreneurs in the gem mining business.

As pro baseball is a seasonal sport, Bryan had the opportunity to work in her business during his off-seasons. He developed a love for gems and started studies at GIA by correspondence. When Bryan’s baseball career came to an end, he began working full time in the company his Mom named Cosa Mia Imports (Spanish for “my thing”). Elsye used to joke, “It’s like Cosa Nostra only a lot less profitable.”

Through the latter half of the 1970s and the 1980’s Cosa Mia branched out into precious gems, diamonds and fine jewelry. During the 1980’s Bryan would travel to East Africa buying rough tanzanites, tsavorites, garnets, chrome tourmalines and sapphires. He also traveled to Asia to buy rubies, sapphires and pearls. In the 1990’s Bryan developed a specialty in natural, un-heated sapphires, making annual trips to Sri Lanka. During this time Cosa Mia’s trade in diamonds also increased and by the latter part of the 1990s represented well over half of their business.

In 1999 Bryan got his baptism in e-commerce being recruited by the first pure-play publicly traded e-commerce business dealing in luxury goods – Ashford.com – at which time Cosa Mia was sold down and Elsye retired. Bryan joined several other local Houston experts at Ashford to build a diamond department at the online retailer, and was Operations Manager of the Diamond Division until 2003 when Ashford was sold to Diamonds.com out of Florida, closing their operations in Houston.

After taking some time off Bryan decided to go back into business for himself founding, building and running gemdiamond.com during the still early years of the online diamond business. Officing in the same building as Whiteflash the principals knew each other and followed one another’s progress. In 2008 the two companies began discussions about combining forces. In early 2009 Whiteflash acquired gemdiamond.com and brought Bryan on to help run the business. With the Great Recession posing a major challenge to business at that time, it was decided to turn off gemdiamond.com and focus all resources on building Whiteflash. The ensuing years brought about an evolution for Whiteflash and a steady climb to profitability. The years also brought a string of Better Business Awards for Whiteflash including the BBB Pinnacle Award multiple times over the last decade.

Today Bryan is focused on education, training, content creation, and communications for the company. But as a member of a small leadership team his role touches many other areas of Whiteflash including business strategy, problem resolution, and team building. He is most proud of the company culture that he has helped develop during his tenure. A culture that is guided by a set of core values and a veteran team of professionals who are laser focused on the customer experience.