18 RETAILER HALL OF FAME 2018 G rowing up, Cathy Tivol showed a natural affinity for the jewelry industry, but she didn’t imagine she’d end up running the family jewelry store established by her grandfather, Charles Tivol, in 1910 and subsequently run by her father, Harold. “When I was a little girl, about 7, I would go down to the store and watch my dad sort small sapphires and rubies with a tweezer,” Tivol explains. “He showed me how to hold tweezers, unfold a diamond paper and use a scale. I remember loving folding and unfolding those diamond papers, and the clink of the stones on the scale. “At the dinner table, my father would talk about the actor from ‘Superman’ coming in that day, or [TV’s singing cowboy] Roy Rogers, and my brother Tom and I would get hysterical. I absolutely had no aspirations to join the family business until college.” Once she changed her mind, Tivol embraced her decision wholeheartedly, taking GIA courses by correspondence while studying English and psychology at college. She liked her GIA diamonds course most of all. “Dad was very big on education and being knowledgeable in our field,” she says. FULL-CIRCLE FAMILY JEWELER She has navigated the trials and tribulations that come with a family-run business to become one of the country’s most respected retailers. BY ASHLEY DAVIS Cathy TIVOL Cathy Tivol is CEO of Tivol, which has stores in Kansas City, Missouri and Overland Park, Kansas. Harold Tivol and Cathy Tivol CATHY TIVOL R E T A ILER HALL OF F A M E MULTI-STORE INDEPENDENT INDUCTEE 2018