Alvin Barnett Fink was born on October 21, 1925, in Selma, Alabama. His family moved to Roanoke in 1928. Mr. Fink was a graduate of Jefferson High School and the University of Virginia. He was a veteran of World War II serving in General Patton’s 3rd Army as a medic. He became a pharmacist by trade, and owned a drug store in Salma, Alabama, He eventually had to close the business in the 1920s because of the sinking economy and moved to Roanoke to work for a jewelry business. In 1929, the jeweler he was working for lost everything in the stock market crash of the great depression. Mr. Fink ended up pushing a wooden jewelry cart in downtown Roanoke selling jewelry that he had on consignment to customers to whom he extended credit.
In 1969, Alvin Fink became the president of Fink’s Jewelers, which had been established by his father, Nathan Fink, in a storefront on Campbell Avenue in 1930. Under his leadership, the family business continued to flourish and evolved into a dynamic 15-retail-store chain in Virginia and North Carolina with locations in Lynchburg, Richmond, Charlotte, and Durham; and A visionary leader, Alvin Fink was a knowledgeable diamond merchant and an adventuresome entrepreneur who traveled the world in search of the perfect gemstone, The Fink’s corporate headquarters was located in downtown Roanoke until 2004, when new offices were completed and opened on Electric Road in Roanoke County.
Mr. Fink served as CEO of Fink’s Jewelers and president of Jewelers of America, and as a lifetime honorary director of the Virginia Retail Jewelers Association. He also served on numerous other civic and professional boards, including the Mountain Trust Bank, the Roanoke Merchants Association, the Roanoke Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Better Business Bureau, the American Cancer Society, the Roanoke Symphony Society, the YMCA, Junior Achievement, and Temple Emanuel, and Downtown Roanoke Inc.
Mr. Fink was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2003. He died on March 20, 2006. He will be fondly remembered for his professionalism and ardent love of his craft.
Alvin Fink was inducted into the Southwest Virginia Business Hall of Fame in 2003.
