Photography: Dustin Ashcraft
Every Tuesday morning starting at 6:20 a.m., Adam and Fred Hinojosa are on SportSRadio 1230 AM, chatting with on-air personality Eric Von Wade.
This may not be the most obvious place to find two custom jewelry retailers, but Adam and Fred are masters of the segue. Pairing different disciplines in their lives has become a refined skill.
They are, at various turns, jewelry designers, sports fans and promoters, political consultants and musicians. Their latest venture, FJO Studio, is yet another metamorphosis geared toward keeping them competitive in business and relevant in the community.
Another recent innovation is "Hidden Community Gems." Every other Tuesday, their visit with Von Wade highlights an individual who had some positive impact in the community. The first "hidden gem" profiled on the program was their mother, who influenced them throughout their lives and taught them the value of doing for others with a humble heart.
The second "hidden gem" was Cassidy Lange, a disabled young man whose enthusiasm for hockey convinced his father, Tim Lange, to save a team that was going bankrupt. The elder Lange bought the Corpus Christi IceRays and switched leagues to keep the team alive as a junior hockey franchise.
"We want to encourage our community, identify a problem and come up with solutions for a problem," Fred said. "That's the whole idea of this Community Gems project."
As sponsors of the IceRays and of the Minor League Baseball Corpus Christi Hooks, the Hinojosas mix fun with business through jewelry giveaways at games.
Then there is the Diamond Dash, their treasure hunt giveaway of a $25,000 ring. This game, fashioned after the Amazing Race concept, goes citywide.
Getting the community excited about something is a Hinojosa talent. They love doing promotions, and creating wealth from jewelry sales keeps their promotional endeavors churning like some perpetual motion machine.
The brothers have been in the jewelry business for eight years. Adam, 35, and Fred, 38, started selling jewelry in 2003 when they bought a jewelry retail outlet business. They became the owner/managers of Fine Jewelry Outlet at Moore Plaza.
They later moved to Sunrise Mall, where the store operated for three years. But the brothers paid heed to trends in the business that would take them in another direction.
"The jewelry business is moving into high-tech modeling now," Adam said. "Fewer people are going to buy a finished piece in a jewelry store. They're wanting to have a say in the type and quality of pieces. Also, in this economy, customers like to be able to take an old piece they may have laying around and remake it into brand-new pieces."
Adam cited the example of a woman who showed up with three separate cluster rings that they were able to convert into a single three-band, interlocking ring.
The brothers took their eight years of experience in customer needs and industry supplies and took an online course. Studying after hours, they learned computer-aided design from the ground up.
"The difference between our CAD and what else is out there is other jewelry designers use templates; they take a pre-made bottom piece and link it to a pre-made top," Adam said. "We start with a blank screen and go with a customer's exact specifications."
They closed their store at the mall, and in June, transitioned into an appointment-only business that is run out of a downtown suite at One Shoreline Plaza.
After discussing a particular customer's concept, they produce a design that is sent to jewelers in New York City, if the piece is especially intricate, or to a local jeweler.
While they're based downtown, the brothers have learned jewelry design in the digital age frees them from being tied downtown. As Fred pointed out, he can plan a trip to Dallas, put out advertising and be there for a week designing pieces with the aid of a laptop.
Former two-term Corpus Christi Mayor Henry Garrett is a repeat customer who brought a custom watch from the Hinojosas, as well as wedding bands for his wife.
"I was real impressed with the patience Adam had," Garrett said.
Garrett would know about Adam's patience in more than one discipline. The brothers have worked with their father's advertising agency, CMA Group, for 12 years. Garrett's relationship with CMA Group began with his first mayoral campaign.
"Adam did a lot of work for me on campaign materials," Garrett said. "He was kind of a go-to guy."
The ad agency specializes in regional political campaigns. Oddly, it had its origins in their father's dedication to his sons' musical careers. After high school, Adam and Fred were backup musicians to various bands, and their father quit his private investigation business to help promote them.
"We were traveling musicians," Adam said. "We worked with Bellamy Brothers, Restless Heart, Mark Wills, Trick Pony."
In the process of trying to build up their careers, the enterprise morphed into an ad agency.
"With our background in being able to produce jingles, putting a concert together, the marketing, we knew all the ins and outs," Adam said.
But their father, Al Hinojosa, loved politics, and that's where he steered the business. In their playing days, Adam was on lead guitar, saxophone, piano and bass guitar. Fred was a singer and guitar player. They both learned music in junior high school from David Getz, a now retired band director who still keeps in touch.
As Getz recalls, he became reacquainted with Adam and Fred when he bumped into them in a grocery store. That eventually led to an invitation to a game, and Getz has become a regular guest of theirs at the ballpark.
"They had 12 season tickets to our minor league baseball team," Getz said.
Adam and Fred don't reminisce much on their band days, though, Getz added.
"When we're sitting there watching baseball with them, we talk about baseball."
Adam and Fred Hinojosa are owners and operators of FJO Studio, a custom design appointment-only jewelry company. They can be reached at 361-500-4433. Their office is located at One Shoreline Plaza, 800 N. Shoreline Blvd., Ste. 340, in the South Tower.
