| Conversation: Searching for Diamonds with Donald Haack |
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| Written by Nate Fitzgerald | |
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Next time you’re out shopping for that string of bling, any Charlotte jeweler can rattle on about points, carats and coloration. Few can reel off tales of wearing hardhat diving equipment (yeah, the brassy kind that adorns the salad bar at the Red Lobster) to scoop up diamonds from the deep waters of the Orinoco River. When Donald Haack set his sites on life outside the Marine Corps in the early 1950s, a convergence of events led him to the uncharted wilds of South America in search of rough diamonds. The first expedition didn’t make a penny and the second nearly fell apart when his partner bailed out at the last minute. But perseverance, tenacity and a knack for finding willing partners paid off when Haack cobbled together sponsorships from Schlitz Brewing Co., Evinrude Motors and Abercrombie & Fitch. For ten bucks, his old Corps commanding officer pitched in a quarter of a ton of outdated c-rations. What was supposed to be a three-week trip stretched into three months for the newly married man fresh out of Milwaukee. He says the trick that saved his marriage was bringing his wife Jan a newborn ocelot, a leopard-like wild cat, plucked from the jungles of British Guiana. If it sounds like material for the next Indiana Jones flick, it could be. Harrison Ford pales compared to the real deal right here in Charlotte. A half-century later, Haack has traded his safari khakis for a blue blazer and is a comfortably ensconced diamond retailer in the South Park area. He has the history and the credibility very few in his business can claim. After building mining operations in South America, moving into diamond wholesaling stateside, and, finally, transitioning into a retailer to the man on the street and stars alike, Haack knows all aspects of the business with an unparalleled depth. These tales and more are recounted in Haack’s 2004 autobiography, Bush-Pilot in Diamond Country. Haack spent nearly thirty years penning the memoir after a fateful meeting with John Steinbeck in Grenada in 1968 planted the seed. The legendary author advised Haack that a book of his true-life tales would be more fascinating than anything a fiction writer could conjure. In fact, Haack’s journey from life experience to the page took so long that periodic overhauls in computer technology nearly derailed the project. Haack plans to spin his story in three parts, with the second installment, Diamond Safari, hitting the bookstores this month. He was even a little late to the interview as he was busy getting final revisions off to the press. After fits and starts of writing over the years, culling stories from his old trip logs and letters home, Haack finally set upon the only writing regimen that would work ¬– rising at 2 a.m. and writing until 4 a.m. for seventeen months straight. This type of dedication is what makes Haack stand out in a business that is often seen as full of gutless, greedy characters. At his store recently, Haack showed off a custom-designed bracelet with a string of 24 matching sapphires. “That took five years to build,” he says, explaining that it takes that long to amass enough gems of the same size and color create such visual perfection. Now that’s patience. Diamond Safari recounts the second phase of Haack’s ventures in South America, this time with his wife. By the mid-sixties they had returned to Wisconsin and Haack was constantly being asked to lead expeditions back to the exotic turf with which he was now so familiar. A neighbor offered a solution that would put an end to the nettlesome requests: he put together a travel pamphlet with a price so high no one would ask again. Well-heeled travelers seeking adventure wrote the checks anyway. Before long, Jan was shipping people down to Guiana where Haack flew them over bush and rivers with a guarantee they’d return with a half-carat diamond in tow. For a period, he was making more money working as a bush pilot than selling rough diamonds.  After living in Grenada for years to sustain his business in South America and surviving two revolutions, the Haacks finally left the tropics for good in the early eighties. Charlotte provided a mild climate somewhere between the equator and Wisconsin, and Haack set up shop just in time to ride the city’s banking boom. He began as a wholesaler Uptown, providing diamonds to stores throughout the Southeast. As the demand for his expertise and the lure of a better markup grew, he moved into high-end retail. As Charlotte prospered, Haack was able to spend less time traveling to New York and other far-flung locales and more time catering to the growing cadre of clients in the Southeast. Over the years, Haack has advertised in The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s, among others, but celebrity clients like Paul Newman and Christie Brinkley find him through word of mouth. Brinkley heard about Haack through a friend. He designed Brinkley’s ring right in her kitchen. While whipping up a wax model of the setting, Haack educated the supermodel on the importance of viewing the gems under various forms of light–not just the jeweler's fluorescent¬–to be sure she would be happy with it in all possible environments, whether it’s a dimly-lit runway or the slopes at Vail. The process of building a custom ring takes six to eight weeks. In Haack’s unassuming studio above the store, Dave Matthews plays on the boom box while master goldsmiths Robbie Fowler and Russell McKenzie work with tools that seem better suited to a dental office. McKenzie finesses a laser-welding machine to build up wedding bands, engagement rings, bracelets and necklaces for elite buyers in Charlotte and beyond. Haack’s team takes pride in recreating a lost family heirloom or making a customer’s whimsical design reality. In the lab, a team of gemologists meticulously scrutinizes and certifies the quality and value of every gem that comes through. In the past, area banks have sought Haack’s advice when customers want to use gems as bargaining chips in land deals. More often than not, people are holding stones that are worth much less than they think; or worse, they’re fake and not worth anything. Years ago, when in Switzerland to personally deliver two fifteen-carat (each!) diamond earrings to a European client, Haack went toe-to-toe with old friend Harry Winston. Winston claimed Haack had stolen his sale. He told Winston he’d simply used his connections to find the right stones first. “Harry, you’re no more Swiss than I am,” he told Winston. Of the elite group of diamond merchants worldwide, Haack says, “It’s an interesting little club.” He says the success of his business hinges on long-term relationships within the trade. Haack buys significantly smaller quantities than a big-box merchandiser might, but the merchants “bring the good quality to us first,” he says, because they know Haack and his team appreciate the quality and, he says, “we’re one of the few that pay on time.” When not in the office, Haack is busy on boards of the Charlotte Foreign Trade Zone, The World Trade Association and the Charlotte Symphony Orchestra. He still enjoys jaunting to Belize or Hong Kong, but he gets away from it all by tending to his seventy acres of land in northern Mecklenburg County, where he grows grapes and makes wine. This January, Haack’s daughter Julie was promoted to C.E.O., a move that assures this elite business will stay in the family. Touring his offices, he points to a world map on the wall and predicts who will be the leading diamond–producing nations in the future. Africa’s nearly tapped out, he says. “They’ve got some mines that are two miles deep.” According to Haack, Australia is currently the world’s top producer, followed by Russia, and he predicts Canada will soon edge out South Africa to become the number three producer. With a genial twinkle in his eye, Donald Haack is no less enthusiastic today about the trade that first beguiled him over fifty years ago. ~ Nate Fitzgerald |
