BROOKFIELD - Whether it’s by taking a trip to the diamond capital of the world or diving into the ocean for treasure, Craig Husar is in the business of buying and selling diamonds.

Husar is the president of Lyle Husar Design, which his father started years ago. Lyle Husar became a diamond buyer and watchmaker 40 years ago, in search of a new challenge after being a machinist. He attended Gem City College in Quincy, Ill., where he studied watch repair and making, and eventually did an apprenticeship under a Swiss watchmaker.

In 1968, Lyle Husar opened a watch shop in Pilgrim Square in Brookfield. A few years later, he and his family decided to move their shop to Capitol Drive and eventually to Bluemound Road, adding jewelry making and selling.

"I spent every summer and weekend working with my father," said Craig Husar, who would eventually leave for California in the 1990s to study gemology at the Gemological Institute of America.

He taught for a bit after graduation.

"When I graduated I thought I knew it all, but when I started teaching I realized I didn’t," Craig Husar said.

In the late 1990s, Craig Husar made his first diamond-buying trip to Antwerp, Belgium, dubbed the diamond capital of the world with nearly 70 percent of the world’s diamonds, with his father. With him he had a magnifying glass.

"You can make costly mistakes if you think something is something that it isn’t," he explained.

Diamond buyers are trained to purchase the finest cut diamonds with the perfect symmetry and polish, Craig Husar said.

"When you look at enough of them, certain diamonds start to stand out," Lyle Husar said.

Diamond buyers also use a master set of colors since diamonds come in all sorts of shades, from black and yellow to pink and red.

The Hope Diamond is the world’s largest deep blue diamond and at 45.52 carats is housed at the Smithsonian Institute.

A half-carat red diamond was recently sold at the auction house Sothbey’s for $1.2 million.

Craig Husar remembers selling a 30-carat yellow canary diamond for a million dollars while working in California.

"That one was big. You could see the reflection of your face," he said.

Diamond buyers are typically placed in rooms with piles of diamonds, and they look through the gems while armed guards are standing in every direction, he said.

As careful as diamond manufacturers are about buyers looking through the diamonds, a sale could sometimes be based on a handshake.

"It’s all based on reputation," Craig Husar said.

While working at the GIA as a teacher, Craig Husar would receive for inspection gems discovered by treasure hunter Mel Fisher and his team. Once, he examined a 90-carat emerald.

"It sent a chill through my entire body," Craig Husar said.

About $450 million worth of coins and jewelry was found on the Nuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish ship that was lost in a hurricane in 1622, near Key West, Fla.

Craig Husar would later work on the project as a diamond and emerald specialist.

"It just kept me in the field in a very different way. I felt very much like Indiana Jones for a few years," he said. "There was so much gold on the ship. It was amazing."

Craig Husar learned how to scuba dive so that he could search for treasures.

"I like to think of my career as revolving around treasures - treasures like diamonds."