So, how did the MetrOasis Advanced Training Center Beauty & Esthetician School come to be in Anchorage, Alaska?

 

Sue likes to say she married her hairdresser, which is true, but there's more to the story. How we started working together began when we saw a life insurance TV ad. It was horrible! An old couple (looked like they were in their 80's) were in a canoe and they were talking about how they never spent any money during their younger lives and now they get to spend all their time together. She turns to the camera and says "We shared secrets, not champagne." We were horrified! 

 

I doubt this was the aim of the insurance company. That was the day we decided to work together and to start spending all of our time together instead of living a Spartan life and then being together when we were too old to have fun. Since we're CRAZY in love with each other, it's been GREAT! We have been married for over 32 years.

 

We moved to Anchorae, Alaska in 1992 when I became the director of a beauty school in Anchorage. It was painful and frustrating. I quit & we started their own school with one goal in mind. To train only top hair stylists and estheticians and future salon/spa owners. That's it. To that end, we have trained many of the top hairdressers and estheticians to come out of Alaska.

 

I began my career in the beauty industry about 40 years ago in 1979. I went to Renon's Trendsetter School of beauty. It was neither trendsetting or beautiful. It was factory! I couldn't even use my name on the tickets. I was a number my "patron" was a number and that's the way it went. There was a guy that stayed in the closet all day, the "dispensary", where the door was cut in half and there was a shelf on top of the bottom of the door. I would give the guy ticket and he'd give me a cafeteria tray with a bottle of goo, a foot long piece of cotton and I'd head off to pour the goo on my client's head. 

 

Then I'd hold up my hand and an "instructor" would come over and look for any spots I missed. I didn't learn to formulate, to apply color, I didn't even know what brand of color we used. I knew I would never have this kind of business. I transfered to Crystal Lavine's Trendsetter Academy of Beauty. It was a little better, but not much. I did learn enough to pass the state board exam though. I can tell you from my own experience that you can NOT get a really great education at a factory beauty school. You can graduate faster but not better!

 

I worked in a few salons trying to figure out what I was doing but not very successfully. The problem is that I relied on that little magic piece of paper,.. my cosmetology license. I thought it meant that I would be successful. It didn't. It meant that the state thought that I was safe enough to work on cliens without injuring or killing them. It didn't mean that they'd be beautiful. Finally, I decided to get some more training so I applied at Gene Juarez. 

 

I had to do a "test cut" which quite insulted me. The state trusted me enough... blah, blah, blah, etc. When I showed up they wanted me to do a 0-degree elevation haircut and a Denman thermal. I didn't even know what that was. I had to show them my license to prove that I'd gone to beauty school. It was pretty sad. So school took me over a year and then I had to do this apprenticeship for 15 months. 

 

THIS is what I should have learned at the first two schools I went to but didn't! After the additional training, I started to do really well. Well enough in fact, that after working there two years I started my own salon in downtown Seattle.

 

I sold the first salon & started a new salon in a new neighborhood closer to my home. I started working with Paul Mitchell as an educational associate. This was my first teaching experience and I liked it. I started working more and more beauty shows and became the regional perm tech for Paul Mitchell. I learned a lot doing this also. I should have been taught this in beauty school as well. I wasn't.

 

I had to travel everywhere going to beauty shows to get the training that I should have received. I guess that pattern just stuck because we travel for additional training each year. Not just to national trainings, international trainings, sometimes several times each year.

 

When we finally opened the MetrOasis Advanced Training Center and Beauty School in Anchorage, Alaska, we decided to make all of this training available to our students. We caught a lot of flack for doing this but we didn't really care. We were NOT going to create another factory beauty school, there were already enough! We did this for a couple of reasons. 

 

We present EVERYTHING to our students. Basic techniques, advanced techniques, platform work, color formulation, salon business, etc. Some of the students learn all of it, some learn only a portion of it but they know that this information exists and they know how to find it. I would have LOVED to have the education that we provide at the MetrOasis ATC beauty school. It just didn't exist. Now it does.

 

So I guess there are three choices available to hairdressing and esthetician students in Anchorage, Alaska. 

 

#1. Go to a factory school and get a marginal education. 

 

#2. Move to a big city and sign up for an apprenticeship for a couple of years and get a good education, or...

 

#3. Attend school at the MetrOasis Advanced Training Center and get a great education.

 

Choose well, we don't accept transfer students.

 

Want to find out more about our training?

 

Franz Sigel Shroy           Sue Shroy