Roberta has extensive jewelry experience - 20 years in all.

She has worked with Bailey Banks & Biddle as a store manager, in addition to serving as a sales associate at Carlyle Jewelers and Granat Bros. at Stanford Shopping Center in Palo Alto. She and husband Nader have operated Mission Hills Gallery Jewelers for nearly seven years. Roberta loves her job.

"If you're working around diamonds all day, how rough can it be?" Roberta says.

Roberta and Nader, who is a fourth-generation jeweler, run the entire operation, and take pride in design and appraisals - their specialties. Nader graduated as a gemologist from G.I.A. in Santa Monica, Calif.

What makes Mission San Jose's Mission Hills Gallery so unique?

"We treat every client as a special individual," Roberta says. "We do everything in house, offering full service."