Back in 1968 I went to work as an apprentice at Millers International. Ken Miller then the owner put me on the line to do production work. I put in heads filed castings and got real good at making the gold fashion original jewelry line. Several years went by and Ken put me in the custom jewelers department. There I blossomed because I worked with some great jewelers like, Tom Gardner, Gail Madsen, Bennie Katz, (a Auschwitz survivor). So many great jewelers and engravers went through that I was in heaven. I worked with everyone. Julius Olson was one of the greatest engravers I have known.
One fine day I was drafted into the army. Viet Nam was in full bloom and after infantry training that’s where I went. I spent 18 months there and of course I had some injuries but I made it…
Back to Millers and there I enjoyed more freedom to expand my art skills and I learned to draw jewelry. Many times Bob Miller would have me talk to the customer and learn what they really wanted. I was so successful that they had me talk to all the customers on all the custom work. And soon I was the head jeweler in the custom department. Even though some of the other very talented jewelers did the work, I had to oversee all of it. We turned out 3 to 5 custom pieces daily. There were some of the most creative pieces of jewelry that time period, (1970’s). I got to personally take on some very detailed and wonderful custom jewelry designs and make them myself.
In 1973 Millers had some trouble. They had expanded to 12 stores and it was imploding and all of us were let go. Eugene Danik, Ray Elsey and Myself Kim Klementis all got together and started Associate Jewelers. We started with benches and tools from the selloff of Millers International. Eugene knew some stores in town and with his rich reputation we went to work. Just the three of us for about a year and then we hired our first employee, Kevin Lindsey. He was an art student that flourished in the atmosphere of the shop and made some very nice pieces. At the height of the shop we had 25 employees and now we have settled down to 12.

I eventually bought out the two other partners. I even have a shop manager. That leaves me to make some unusual pieces and deal with the truly weird. In 2004 I purchased the Wally Anderson Jewelry company located in Eugene Oregon, in 2009 I moved it up to Portland to be in the same shop as Associate Jewelers. In 2011 we changed our name to Four Decades Jewelers Inc. The instant thought of how long we have been in business shocked a few but the name really works.

As soon as I could we bought lasers and CAD machines and software. We pioneered cad and lasers in Portland, being the first to dig deep to put the business in the 21st century. Now we are running strong.

Kim Klementis