Lee Ayers Jewelers: ‘Where dreams become real’

Sue Grossardt

Contributor

July 7, 2025

STEVENS POINT – As part of an industry that has weathered significant changes over the years, Lee Ayers Jewelers is celebrating more than four decades of local and global service.

Owner Lee Ayers said he had always dreamed of owning his own business.  

“I was in retail management, and I was asked to be the manager of a high-quality men’s clothing store,” he said. “The store was losing its manager, and they asked me to step in. I did so for about four and a half years.”

At that time, Ayers said he was in the midst of executing a 10-year plan.

“My long-term plan was to own my own business,” he said. “At that point, I had four years left on that 10-year plan, [so] I said, ‘I’ll give you four years.’”

Following his stint as a store manager, Ayers said he began pursuing his own venture.

“I didn’t know at that point what [kind of] business [I wanted to open], but I did know it would be retail… because I’ve always been a people person,” he said. “I was never in the jewelry industry before, I just knew that retail would [be a good fit for me]. I ended up in the business by accident, and [then] fell in love with it.”

Ayers said he appreciates being located at 1044 Main St. in the heart of downtown Stevens Point.

“I had spent 10 years [working] on Main Street, so I knew a lot of people and that really helped me get started,” he said. “We wanted it to be focused on designing jewelry and offering [a] service that was unique in our market, and repairing jewelry, too. Other jewelers were already fixing jewelry, but custom goldsmithing was the focus of [my] business.”

Building his team from the ground up, Ayers said, was his first task.

“We started the store with a young graduate – Jim Dailing from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point – who agreed to be our designer goldsmith,” he said. “About a year in, he asked his brother, Tom, to come and help with jewelry repairs. Jim left to further his education, and Tom became our designer goldsmith.”

When he came on the team, Ayers said right away he could see Tom loved the art of custom jewelry design and goldsmithing.

“It was in his very DNA, and we all knew it,” he said. “It didn’t take very long, and we saw that he had tremendous potential.”

Tom said he suspected his talent for design before Ayers hired him – he just needed a chance to prove himself.

“I knew I would become a really good designer,” he said. “When I started with Lee, I was repairing jewelry. There was not enough work, as it was only 12 [jobs] a week, just switching posts on earring backs. It was still hands-on equipment materials experience, but I knew if I could get my toe in the door, I could build myself into a monster [designer].”

Though he’s taken the time over the last four decades to do just that, Tom said the learning never stops.

“I’ve done this for almost forty years, [and] I’m still learning new techniques, ideas and methods,” he said. “At first, I won a couple small design competitions… and then all of a sudden, it’s like the light switch hit, and then, boom, I got my first national award.”

After receiving his first national recognition, Tom said the awards kept on coming.

“It was literally an avalanche,” he said. “I started winning them two at a time, and then the work started getting [featured] on the covers of national magazines.”

Tom said his notoriety grew at an exponential rate. 

“I [now] design globally,” he said. “My [customer base] is no longer [just] regional – it has reached across the globe.”

A hidden gem

Though he admits he struggled with other subjects in school, Tom said “art was always interesting” to him.

“No matter what class I was in, [my books and notebooks] were covered with scribbles,” he said. “I started progressing my abilities by teaching myself how to be a better artist. I lived in the metals room every night at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, where I was enrolled to [grow] my ability as fast as I could.”

Between high school and college, Tom said he took a “big gap” and worked in the fine dining industry.

“I was running around the country working in gourmet dining rooms, [but] I had an epiphany that my career was getting in the way of me making things,” he said. “I began [creating] tight, intricate carvings on anything I could get my hands on. I collected natural materials like abalone shells and deer antlers.”

Then, at age 27, Tom said he started working at Lee Ayers Jewelers.

“I think I saw the talent that Tom had before he had it,” Ayers said.

The fine jewelry industry, as a whole, Ayers said, has been positively impacted of late – both by the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economy.

“We were really fortunate coming out of the pandemic,” he said. “Many people readjusted what was on their minds, and the jewelry industry, as a whole, benefited. We had terrific business post-pandemic.”

During COVID-19, Ayers said he suspects many people took stock of the important relationships in their lives.

“It seemed as though people wanted to give themselves a little reward,” he said. “Tom works with a lot of couples coming to him, wanting to do something special. People [were] relooking at relationships, [and] a lot of our business has to do with people celebrating things in their lives.”

Even though Tom said he’s been making customers’ engagement rings and wedding bands “since day one” at Lee Ayers Jewelers, that doesn’t mean his eye for design is stuck in the past.

“Now I’m making engagement and wedding rings for [customers’] children, decades later – and they’re not coming to me [saying], ‘Oh, he’s making old guy jewelry,’” he said.

Ayers said his customers’ continued support of Lee Ayers Jewelers and Tom’s designs is a testament to his business’s primary commitment.

“From the time we started the store, it’s been about service – serving a customer is the No. 1 priority,” he said, “and, of course, Thomas Dailing Design is such a unique service… We get people who will start crying with us because they have just been gifted a Tom Dailing piece.”

Every piece that Tom designs, Ayers said, is uniquely custom and working with him is “tremendously personal.”

“We take great care of our customers,” he said. “We truly believe that when you take care of your customer, the customer will take care of you.”

With every detail of his “made-from-scratch” jewelry personally designed by himself, Tom said the array of his work is expansive.

“We don’t hang on computers and have machines execute the pieces – we hand-finish every detail,” he said. “My cases are a complete testament to the fact that the 50 pieces of jewelry out there are remarkably diverse. I have an octopus ring that looks alive, and we also have the most stunning Art Deco stylized pieces and futuristic pieces [that were created] out of ancient ruins.”

Thomas Dailing Designs has a global impact, Ayers said – appearing in the Los Angeles gallery, The Crown Collection and in Maui Master Jewelers in Hawaii.

He said Tom’s work can also be found in the Smithsonian Institute. 

Four decades of services

Reaching 40 years in business, Ayers said, is a gratifying milestone that he and his crew marked with an anniversary celebration earlier this year.

“We celebrated for the entire month of April,” he said. “The Portage County Business Council came down for a ribbon-cutting ceremony [and] customers shar[ed] their sentiments about the store and our service. We had so many people coming in saying, ‘I’ve been coming here for 40 years, 35 years, 30 years.’ There was just a lot of reminiscing among the customers. We had quite a few people thanking us for being in business and staying in business.”

Ayers said the 3,000-square-foot shop is home to 13 display cases and an 18-foot oak gallery showcasing its top-selling designs. 

At one point, he said they supported a staff of 12, but have since reduced their team to nine.

The pandemic, Ayers said, led them to make some changes due to safety and personnel issues.

“One of the greatest challenges that we face is finding the right people to work,” he said. “It takes a lot of time to find the right person and the training process is quite lengthy, too.”

Getting the word out is another challenge, Tom said, as there are a myriad of different ways in which to market a business these days – far beyond a television ad. 

“Television ads are one way [to tell our story], but people are using [various] streaming channels and are on social media now,” he said. “So, it becomes more challenging to catch people’s eye.”

Tom said visuals are almost everything when it comes to marketing Lee Ayers Jewelers and Thomas Dailing Designs.

“Our customers are our best advertisers, because they are wearing our products, and the places that they travel to can be unlimited,” he said. “People tell me they’ve been in Alaska and had people see their jewelry and say, ‘that is a Tom Dailing piece.’ I had a customer who was in Paris, and a person saw her jewelry and said the same thing.”

Visibility in the community, along with philanthropy, Ayers said, are also very important elements to the business. 

“We’ve been major supporters of nonprofits in our area through the years, which adds to the value of word-of-mouth communication for us,” he said. “We hear positive responses from people who see that we support many local organizations.”

Ayers said as they round out their 40th anniversary year, he and his staff are already looking forward to reaching the 50-year mark.  

“I’m not a spring chicken – I’m actually working past retirement age,” he said. “We have some young people working for us, [and] it’s our hope that they will carry the torch. We want the store to continue, and we want the values that we hold dear to stay with the store.”

Head to ayersjewelers.net for more information on Lee Ayers Jewelers.