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MOST HAWAII residents "know" Jacques Adler not by who he is, but what he says. "If you are not buying your diamonds from the House of Adler," he intones on his television commercials, "you are paying too much." But when he's not in front of the camera, Jacques Adler is the workaholic president, chief executive officer and chairman of the board of the $7.9-million, 43-year-old House of Adler, number 238 on the Hawaii Business Top 250.
Adler has always lived the frenetic business pace. At a time when most 68-year-olds are enjoying their retirement years, the Waikiki resident works six and a half days a week, and says he thinks about business almost 24 hours a day. "Yes, we all want to be home for dinner. We all want to be home for Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter," says Adler in his mellifluous French accent. "I ate turkey many times on Thanksgiving in trains, ships and on airplanes, and I would have liked to have been with my family. But I am dedicated to my business first."
While many such diehard businesspeople are motivated by the desire to improve upon impoverished beginnings, Jacques was born with a silver spoon in his mouth: He was the youngest son of Henry Adler, at one time Belgium's largest diamond exporter. Despite an upper-class lifestyle -- living in a mansion pampered by servants, attending all the best private schools in Antwerp and Brussels -- Jacques was far from the spoiled child. Henry Adler expected all of his children to earn their own spending money. "We could have all the fun in the world, we could do anything we wished, but not with his money," remembers his son. But he did offer his children a gold mine in opportunity to learn the industry from him, one of the best in the business. Thus, Jacques mastered the diamond trade -- from diamond cutting as a 14-year-old, to gemological grading,...