Getting Started

I spent most of the last 25 years living and working in San Francisco and loved every day of it! I moved there in the early ‘90s and got a job doing hair in the Haight Ashbury District. Grunge was everything then,with Nirvana blasting out of every shop on the street. Coming from a small town in Northern New Mexico, I thought I was in Heaven. We saw the best bands, wore the best fashion, and I met some of my best teachers.

My first boss had also just moved to San Francisco from straight from London and the infamous Vidal Sassoon Academy. He realized that I wasn’t very well trained and made a point to take me under his wing, staying late with me countless nights after work to teach me what he knew. Within a year we had started a training program for the entire Salon and we ran it together. Through that I discovered that I loved teaching and it shaped the next 25 years of my life.

Not long after arriving in San Francisco, I took an educational trip to London to visit the Vidal Sassoon Academy myself. I also took 2 weeks at Toni & Guy Academy. That was “it” for me! I resonated so profoundly with Toni & Guy, the world opened up for me in London. I connected instantly with the European way of cutting hair. It felt instinctive and effortless. I was on Fire. After that, I returned to London 3 times a year to study and stoke that fire. Toni & Guy was my love, and I worked and travelled with them for the next 20 some years.

In time I became a TIGI Ambassador. TIGI was the Product division of Toni & Guy, and the ambassador program empowers its Senior Art Directors to reach more stylists by teaching “in Salon” programs and working the Trade Shows. I became the “Regional Education Director” for the entire West Coast so not only did I teach beginner and advanced courses in private salons but I also trained and groomed new talent for our Ambassador Team and helped them become platform artists themselves. Over the years my peers and I build an amazing team that I still consider to be the best in the industry.