Tom Moses Looks Back on His Decades at GIA

When I sat down to talk with Tom Moses early on a Friday morning a couple weeks ago, I learned something that I either had never known or (just as likely) forgot.

Like me, Tom is a fellow former Pittsburgher. He grew up in Butler County, Pennsylvania, less than an hour from my home in neighboring Beaver County.

His introduction to the jewelry industry came via his family.

In 1949, after serving in World War II, Tom’s father, Merril Moses, used the G.I. Bill to attend a watchmaking school in Pittsburgh and then started in the jewelry business as a watchmaker.

“As with most family businesses, [when] I was 13 or something, I was called upon in the evening and on weekends and summers to come to work and do odds and ends,” Tom recalled.

This meant cleaning a lot of glass and vacuuming—or “running the sweeper,” as they say in Western PA—as well as learning how to engrave and repair jewelry. 

Along the way, Tom became interested in gemstones and in a little section of GIA’s Gems & Gemology that he remembers as “Notes from New York,” the forerunner to the “Lab Notes” section in the journal today.

Authored by two men now considered legends in gemology, Richard T. Liddicoat and G. Robert Crowningshield, the section consisted of one- or two-paragraph blurbs about gemstones, explaining, for instance, the chemical composition of an emerald.

After college, Tom attended GIA, then in Santa Monica, California, earning his Graduate Gemologist diploma in 1976.

What followed was about a decade of alternating between working at GIA—he was in the Santa Monica lab for a few years in the late ‘70s/early ’80s—and at his family’s jewelry store, Moses Jewelers.

Tom said though his father probably would have preferred he stay with the family business, he never outright asked him to do so. He allowed his son to follow his own path, something Tom came to understand and appreciate when he became a father. 

In 1986, he left the family business for the last time to take a job at the GIA lab in New York, working alongside Crowningshield.  

“That kind of started the journey. It was a great opportunity to learn and be mentored.”  

All told, Tom’s been at GIA for about 45 years, a long stretch by any standard but in his mind, not long enough.

Tom said just a couple years ago, he told a few colleagues that he’s “running out of time” and will never feel like he accomplished enough.

“My mentors were just so good; they were just incredible. I had hoped to get to that level and I just didn’t,” he said.

That seems like an insane statement for somebody as well regarded and respected as Tom, who won the Richard T. Liddicoat Award for Distinguished Achievement in 2002, was elected to the GIA Board of Governors in 2013, and will leave GIA in May with the title chief of gemological research, emeritus. 

He also has co-authored more than 100 technical articles for Gems & Gemology and other peer-reviewed journals over the years.

Looking back, though, Tom said he would have liked to have done even more writing and research, but he got involved with the business side of the lab’s operations, helping it to expand internationally.

GIA opened about half a dozen labs overseas between 2005 and 2010.

It was a worthy pursuit but one that took time away from pursuing his passion, gemology, a conflict many professionals face as they ascend in their careers.

The day-to-day responsibilities of running a business eat up much of the day, and more creative pursuits, like designing jewelry or (in my case) writing long-form stories, get pushed to the side.

Still, next to Tom’s computer at his desk at GIA’s New York lab on 47th Street is a microscope. He’s had this instrument for about 20 years so it’s not “the latest or the greatest” but it gives him the opportunity to become “hypnotized” by a gemstone.

“It takes me to a peaceful place where I can focus on the gemstones. I’m still as fascinated [by gemstones] as I was 50 years ago, which is a lucky feeling.”

The first question that came to mind when I thought about my exit interview with Tom was, what is the most interesting stone you’ve had the opportunity to examine? It’s not a terribly original question, I realize, but this inquiring mind wanted to know.

“That question comes up a lot and I answer differently,” he said.

He mentioned the “La Peregrina” pearl, part of Elizabeth Taylor’s incomparable jewelry collection, which set records when Christie’s auctioned it in 2011. 

The pearl had one or two not insignificant scratches on its surface, which Tom believes were from her dog.

There was also the time he got to handle and examine the 2,488-carat stone unearthed in Botswana in August 2024, the “Motswedi” diamond, pictured at the top of the article. 

It is the second largest rough diamond ever found and weighs more than a pound.

“The thought about using a pound to talk about a diamond ...  it was amazing. It was an incredible diamond,” he said.  

“I'm hoping tomorrow I'll [be able to] tell you another story about something that equally impressed me.” 

Tom said he first began having conversations with the GIA Board of Governors about transitioning a couple of years ago. It, he acknowledged, is time to move on. 

He recalled a conversation he had with GIA founder Robert Shipley more than 40 years ago, who relayed how the board had to kind of “encourage” him to retire when he stepped down in 1952.  

He doesn’t want to reach the encouragement stage. 

“I don’t ever want to be in a situation where someone really kind of reminds you, it’s time to go. I don’t think I reached that stage, but I think it’s the right time.” 

Tom said he’s not retiring but doesn’t have plans to go anywhere else right now. He said he will take a little time away—which for Tom, means a few weeks—before he decides what’s next.

As for that microscope next to his desk, he said he might try to take it with him when he goes. 

I won’t tell anyone, Tom. Best of luck.