Jeremy Shepherd is a leader, innovator, and a disruptor.

From an early age he struck out on his own to satisfy his fierce independence, need for adventure, and a more satisfying way of life.

As a teenager, he traveled to Japan alone and stayed to attend high school. He is self-taught and fluent in Japanese, Spanish and Micronesian.

Through college, Jeremy worked for Passport to Languages as an interpreter of all three languages.

To continue his world travels, became a flight attendant in 1996 and began to import pearls during his runs to Asia.

In a sector dominated by generations old family businesses, Jeremy endeavored to become a first generation, self-taught pearl importer, dealer, and internet reseller.

Over the past 20 years, he has traveled to pearl producing areas all over the world creating relationships with pearl producers, exporters, and people dedicated to support the pearl industry.

Here are some milestones of Jeremy’s innovative efforts:

• Visited pearl farms in nine countries.
• Guided research team through Chinese pearl farms in prep for the GIA pearl course and served on content review team for the finished course.
• 2004: Produced Pearl-Guide.com – the only news and community forum dedicated to everything pearls, currently hosting over 200,000 pages of content and servicing more than 10,000 members.
• 2005: Purchased an Asian pearl farm, providing invaluable vertical market experience.
• 2007: Was one of three people from United States invited to present to the World Pearl Forum in Dubai.
• 2007: Wrote and published book on how to start online businesses.
• 2011: Lead a four-week, seven-country pearl farm tour to create an educational video series for the Cultured Pearl Association of America
• 2012: Produced the short documentary: The Tahitian Pearl.
• 2013: Best Director award for short documentaries at the International Family Film Festival.
• 2015: Joined the board of the Cultured Pearl Association of America.
• 2016: Wrote Pearls as One, the Cultured Pearl Association of America’s Pearl Specialist Certification Course. Now translated into nine languages and taken by more than 35,000 students making it the most taken pearl education course in history.
• 2018: Executive produced Power of Pearl, a feature-length film on the South Sea pearl industry.
• Has been profiled by:
• The Wall Street Journal
• Entrepreneur Magazine
• Inc. Magazine
• Newsweek
• The New York Times
• The Financial Times
• USA Today
• And appeared on numerous national news and entertainment shows.

Jeremy is married to Hisano Shepherd, an international award winning pearl jewelry designer and lives on the beach in Marina del Rey with their Corgi named Happy. Hisano and Jeremy continue to travel the world, diving and sailing whenever they can.

Mia grew up in San Diego, California. She graduated at the top of her class as her high school valedictorian. She went on to receive her college degree from the University of California, San Diego in Theatre Costume Design with Cum Laude honors. Her interest in jewelry design led her to study pearls and pearl grading with the Gemological Institute of America where she received her diploma in Pearls.

At PearlParadise.com, Mia is one of the pearl buyers and travels to Asia frequently to build the pearl inventory. She also manages the intake and organization new pearls, gold, and diamond pieces that are added to the PearlParadise.com line. In addition, she also oversees the processing of orders from the stringing line to the appraising of each pearl piece.

Artist and Jewelry Designer Hisano Shepherd has been fascinated by the art of jewelry making since early childhood. In pursuit of this passion, Hisano graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in Jewelry and Metalsmithing from California State University of Long Beach and then followed this with a Masters of Fine Arts in Jewelry at State University New York at New Paltz.

After graduation, Hisano put her passion and education to work in the jewelry industry as a designer and educator, finding a part time position PearlParadise.com, Inc, and teaching metalsmithing and jewelry design at two separate colleges.

Today, Hisano is a permanent, full time member of the team and has since become the Chief Creative Officer overseeing all design, production and purchasing. Hisano also launched her personal line, little h, in 2012. Her pieces have won tremendous acclaim and have found fans from the First Lady of the United States to superstar Taylor Swift and many others.

Scott is Canadian by birth, moved to Los Angeles when he met the girl he couldn’t live without and had to chase her all the way across North America to ask her to marry him. Scott now calls sunny LA home.

Educated in computer programming with a background in art, Scott naturally progressed into a career in web design and development. During the dot-com boom he created his own design and development business that he ran successfully for over a decade. He still works on freelance projects and business ventures in his free time away from Pearl Paradise.

Scott has worked with some of the most well recognized brands in the world as well as all 3 levels of Government. His web projects have seen millions of dollars in revenues go through their checkouts and over the years he continues to take new courses and learn new skills as he considers himself a life-long learner in an industry that never stops changing and growing.

Scott is now the Director of Web/IT Operations for Pearl Paradise. Scott manages the day-to-day web operations while overseeing the development of new and exciting changes in this area of our business.

With some exciting new features to be launched on our site in the coming year, Scott will play a big part in making those happen.

Scott is also GIA Certified in Pearls.

John Dwight (Jr.) was born in Cleveland Ohio, and later moved to Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where he attended high school and college. Starting at the early age four, he spent his summers taking art lessons at the Cleveland Museum of Art, and always found himself particularly drawn to the ancient jewelry exhibits. By the age of 18, he was making his own jewelry and selling in art galleries and high-end boutiques across the country. In his early 20’s, he collaborated with renowned bridal designer Tomasina, and a line was created which was adorned with John’s handmade jewelry and sold nationally at Saks Fifth Avenue. John moved to Los Angeles over ten years ago and has worked with jewelry companies specializing in high-end diamonds and cultured pearls.

John is also an accomplished DJ, and has performed in such prestigious venues as the world famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem, The House of Blues in Los Angeles, and the Allenby 58 in Tel Aviv Israel.

At Pearl Paradise, John manages the in-house production of new jewelry designs to add to the site, as well as developing and managing new marketplaces for Pearl Paradise’s pearl jewelry to be sold.team

Amir was born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey. He relocated to Los Angeles, California where he began to work at Pearl Paradise almost one year ago. In his short time working for the company Amir has learned much more about pearl jewelry that he can imagine. He is a part of our production team here at Pearl Paradise where he help fulfill customer orders and package the products for shipping. Working at Pearl Paradise is a growing experience in Amir's life and he continues to grow each day with the company.team-amir