05: Jo Haemer, “The World Doesn’t Owe Me a Thing”

Mechanical and engineering skills are matrilineal in Jo Haemer’s family. Jo’s trailblazing mother studied chemistry in college in the early 1930s at age 15. When Jo started out in the jewelry industry, she was always the “first and only woman” in every place she worked.  Her spectacular journey has included confronting the stigma imposed on her dyslexia, learning old-world skills from camp survivors, working with a 17-carat diamond (“a two-diaper setting job”), and fabricating luxury eyewear.  Join Jo and Courtney as they bust the myth of the starving artist and lift up jewelers everywhere.