Mary Anne Erwin lives her dream

JULY 2009

Enter Salone di Capelli and you are immediately enveloped in the warmth of Old Italy and Tuscan architecture—stone-like floors, gold walls and pillars, dark brown stained cabinetry. Several ladies are seated on leather and tapestry-upholstered antique-style sofas and chairs. Others gaze into gilt framed full-length mirrors, chatting with stylists who work intently. The atmosphere is friendly with the sounds of laughter, music, and a blow dryer performing its duties.

From her station at the front of the shop, Mary Anne Erwin turns from the customer she is cutting and greets you—a big smile and sparkling eyes. She waves. Mary Anne is doing what she loves in a place that she loves with people whom she considers extended family. As she says, “I just love where I am right now in my life.”

The product of a very traditional Italian family from New York, Mary Anne believes in dreaming big and making it happen. “You have to follow your dreams,” she says. Since high school, Mary Anne’s dream was to be a hair stylist. It was not the dream her parents had for her, though.

“In my family, everyone goes to college. That’s the American Dream. Being a hair stylist was not the image or the future that my family had in mind for me. My mother was like how are you going to find a husband? What kind of man are you going to find in that profession? It was the old image of a hair stylist—the ‘Steel Magnolias’ stereotype—hair dressers are uneducated people who can’t get into college, who are chomping gum and smoking cigarettes with a soda can on the station. But I was determined; I had a passion for it.”

“Mary Anne is probably the most determined person I know,” says her younger sister Jackie. “If she sets her mind on something, it happens. When we were young, she had a little blue box with rollers and a Barbie mannequin head. She did hairstyles on it all the time. Then she moved up to cutting our bangs and eventually took charge of our hair.”

During her junior and senior year in high school, Mary Anne took cosmetology classes offered through a continuing education program at a local trade school. All the while, she kept a high profile at her high school, participating in cheerleading and other activities—and staying on course academically to attend college. “I guess I was kind of an oddball in high school,” Mary Anne laughs. “When I think about it now, it was kind of strange.”

Jackie says that when Mary Anne was in high school, their dad bought her a salon sink and chair and set up a little beauty shop in their basement. “Mary Anne would do everyone’s hair in the family,” Jackie remembers, “plus her friends would all come over. She loved doing it.”

On Christmas break of her freshman year in college, Mary Anne took her state boards to obtain her hairdressing license. She appeased her parents, too, by staying in college and  getting a degree in retail management.

“When you are a teenager, you never think your parents are right,” says Mary Anne. “But they were so right because that college degree has helped me so much in my business. And no matter what I say about my mother wanting me to go to college to find a husband—well, guess what? I found my husband in college!”

“We had a lot in common, and we had a lot of differences,” says Mary Anne’s husband Allen, “but I think the differences drew us together as much as the commonalities. We got married because we were in love—and we were best friends.”

Mary Anne spent four years working in retail management as the district manager of a funky clothing store in New York, but once she and Allen started a family, she knew she wanted to stay home with her children.

In true Mary Anne fashion, she figured out a way to make it work. The couple built a salon in the basement of their house, and she worked evenings so she could be a full-time mom during the day. “I would be with them until 4 p.m. and then I would go downstairs and go to work. It was important for me to be with my kids. Children establish their character and personality the first six years of their life, so I was determined to be the biggest influence in their lives for those first six years.”

Then in 1995, several years after Mary Anne’s parents moved to Georgia, the Erwins decided to relocate to the South also. Allen took a job with Yokogawa Corporation of America in Newnan, and they purchased a home in Peachtree City. “At first, I was selling beauty products and getting involved with church and the kids’ activities—school, sports, scouts. But I have to work. We all work for income, but more than that, I just have to be doing two or three things or I’m not content.”

It wasn’t long before Mary Anne was working full time at La Hair in Peachtree City. At La Hair, Mary Anne says that she became more interested in growing her business and growing herself personally. “As a salon, La Hair was very ‘before its time.’ They had somewhat of a business program and were focused on education. They also had a wonderful family environment.”

After seven years, Mary Anne realized she had outgrown La Hair and made a move to the Anthony Michael Salon for five years. “This salon was also very family focused and had a great team atmosphere.”

During her time at Anthony Michael, Mary Anne took what would be an important business step for her by becoming a certified Redken color specialist. To become a certified color specialist, she had to do three things: first, a bubble-in test, second, eight essays on color correction skills, and third, a practical test; she had to score 85 or above on all components.  After becoming a certified Redken color specialist, Mary Anne began teaching color at Redken salons. She gradually worked up through the ranks, going from being qualified to teach at smaller salons to the point where she was instructing stylists at some of the most elite, high-ranked Redken salons in the country.

At the bi-annual Redken Symposium and Convention in Las Vegas, the largest and most prestigious educational event for hairstylists, she was chosen for three years in a row as one of a select few to work on a team of stylists with Sam Villa, the director of Redken’s 5th Avenue New York location.  As of press time, she is the only Redken color specialist in Fayette and Coweta counties.

It was also during this time that Mary Anne found out about Redken’s Summit business systems—a Redken founded program that shows salon owners step-by-step how to grow their business. The Summit business system involves creating a work atmosphere where employees are mentored so that they are able to grow and become high-level team players. Salon owners experience higher profit margins, better retention and morale, and a team environment for their business, while clients get improved services.

Her enthusiasm for the Summit system led Mary Anne to move to Carlo’s Salon, which is a Summit Salon. She stayed for two years, growing her Redken career and being involved in a salon that followed the Summit guidelines. “I learned the business system, but realized I missed the family culture of other salons.” Mary Anne’s determination took charge again, and she decided she would strike out on her own. She went to Minneapolis to take a course in the Summit program, learning the intricacies of setting up her own salon based around Summit principles of business. In December 2008, Mary Anne opened Salone di Capelli.

“When Mary Anne decides to jump in, she jumps in 100 percent,” says Allen, her husband. “We knew we were going to be up to our necks when we opened the shop, but she just gets in there and accomplishes things. She is amazingly successful at that.”

“My mission now is to achieve balance in my salon by combining the Summit system with a family atmosphere. I have always been family focused.  After all, I’m 100% Italian, so it’s family first. Period. We instill that in my salon. I want the girls to grow professionally as well as individually. Help them learn to balance family and career. I tell them that they need to have a life. They need to have time with their families.”

Mary Anne has five women working for her— four stylists and one associate who Mary Anne is mentoring to become a stylist. “If you work in my salon, you have to be willing to be mentored,” says Mary Anne emphatically. “Our salon is very career focused and very team focused. Everybody mentors each other, and it’s all about everybody growing together. If a stylist is unsure how to do something, she can ask me. The stylist grows and every client gets a high level of service. Nobody loses.”

Laura Trigg, who has been a stylist for two years, mentored under Mary Anne at Carlo’s Salon and now works for her at Salone di Capelli. “I call her my salon mother. She is very patient. She knows how to work with people. She is great at building personal relationships—making things easy for people. Her salon gives a lot more attention to stylists than most salons do. She gives promotions and wants to help everyone grow their business.”

Good-hearted is one way Allen describes his wife. “She doesn’t want to be successful alone. She motivates others to be successful, too. She says, ‘Don’t quit. We’ll do it together.’”

Friends have questioned Mary Anne about why she would want the responsibility and risk of opening up a new business now. Her kids are grown; she and Allen soon will be empty nesters. Their daughter,       Jessica, is interning at a contemprary art museum in New York City and their son, Scott, has just graduated from high school and is off to Georgia Southern. And, as many people point out, the nation is in a recession.

“I love what I do, and a goal I have always had is to grow people,” says Mary Anne. “This may not be a good time in some ways to start a business, but it is a good time for me.”

Mary Anne looks thoughtful when she thinks about the things she has accomplished and the direction of her life and career. Her philosophy? “Do what you love,” she emphasizes. “Make a plan and ‘ink it.’ If you have a dream and you want to make it come true, put it down on paper. If you need more education, get it. Find a mentor. If you know of someone who has a career that you want, don’t be afraid to ask that person for help. And once you ask that person for help, allow him or her to truly help you.”

Mary Anne says she still believes in the American Dream. Hers was different than the one her parents had for her, but with pluck and determination, she made all of their dreams come true. She believes that you have to find your inner strength.

“You know, it’s more than luck,” she says. “When you have two kids doing great, and your husband has a job that’s doing great, and you open up a business that is experiencing success, and you have stylists who actually want to work with you and actually like where they’re working—well, it’s a blessing. When all of that balances out, you have to say you’re more than lucky.”

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