What is your degree and what year did you graduate?
My degree was in Business Marketing and I graduated in 2012, which seems like an eternity ago.
Did you know what you wanted to do at that time with your degree?
I had great professors in business, but I had an amazing sales professor and I was like, “Oh my gosh, I want to go sell stuff!” I don’t know what I want to do or what I’m going to sell, but I want to sell stuff. That’s what my goal was; to go and be some sort of sales person.
Did that have anything to do with what your current employment is? Can you tell me a little bit about that.
I opened Texture Curl Bar. This is week seven of owning this business and it’s been amazing. I’m so grateful for all the support. If somebody would have told me when I was graduating from Alvernia that in x amount of years you’re going to be opening this business, like a hair salon, I would have been in disbelief. This wasn’t the plan originally. When I graduated a month later, I started working for Iron Mountain, which was a records management and records storage company out of Collegeville. I ended up being there for almost nine years. I left Iron Mountain last October. When I got to Iron Mountain all my goals and dreams of working in sales all made sense. I started in customer care. I got promoted a couple of times. I ended up managing a couple of teams and then I made it to the sales team, which was my last role there. I was a customer success manager for three years. Along with doing that job, I had my daughter. I have two kids, Emy who is six and Max who is 20 months. Emy was born with straight hair and then when she was about 5 months her hair fell out. It grew back curly. Obviously, I have naturally curly hair and I’ve been kind of battling with it my whole life. I would wear it curly on and off, but I would mainly wear it straight. I don’t know if you are familiar with a keratin treatment, but I had that done to straighten out my curls. So, when her hair fell out and came back curly, I was like “Oh my gosh, I have to learn how to deal with her hair and through that I learned how to deal with my hair. I was trying products and watching YouTube videos. I was reading. I was researching and googling. I was doing all these things just to learn about her hair because I wanted her to feel beautiful and I didn’t want to be a mom that wasn’t a role model to my daughter. After I saw how her hair was taking to all the things I was doing to it, I was like, “I am going to do this too.” I cut off all my hair, which was very long at the time and I started my transition. Then I started sharing that mainly on Instagram and a little bit of it on Facebook. Friends and family started asking me for advice and help. At that time, we lived in Royersford because I was working in Collegeville, David was working in Oaks. David is my husband by the way. This was over six years ago now and I was like “Oh my gosh, I really love what I’m learning about hair. I want to do this. I want to start working on hair.” My original thought honestly was to open a hair salon and hire hairstylists to work on natural hair and I would just manage it. It kind of morphed into me wanting to go to school and get my license. So, I know this question kind of went all over, but this is the story and to answer your question as to how sales applies to what I do now. I did learn a lot of customer care and sales in my career going along with my education in Marketing. Everything I learned at Iron Mountain and at Alvernia, I’m using it at my business. The conversations that I have with my clients in essence I am selling my product to them. I’m not directly selling them anything but I am selling because it is a business. I am selling a service. I do sell products and I sell my T-Shirts.
What makes you most passionate about the work that you do?
Where do I start? Honestly, it started with my daughter and even self-acceptance and self-love for myself. Right now there are really hard days because this is a very physical and mental job. Physically, I’m on my feet all day and mentally you know people bring me these pictures or just these problems that they have and I have to sit here and figure out how I’m going to cut the hair, color the hair and all these things. It’s very draining, but what keeps my passion going really strong is when people tell me, like “Wow”. My clients always say that after I cut and style their hair that they tell me they did not know their hair could do that. “I never knew my hair could be this beautiful”. I have clients that giggle. I have clients that laugh. I have clients that cry when they see the final product because it is this moment of, “Oh my gosh, my hair is beautiful.” The feedback and how grateful people are and when people tell me I am never going to anyone else, which I know sounds extreme, but it’s how appreciative and happy people are that we are able to provide these services. On the days that I am most exhausted, I read those messages, reviews and think about the conversations with my clients and that keeps me really motivated and keeps me going.
Are you the only person working in your salon right now or do you plan on hiring more people?
We just hired someone last night. She is only working part time because she is a student. I am working with the barber academy to get some of their students. I did a class there a couple weeks ago and I got in touch with some really talented students, so I am starting to bring some more.
Can you tell me what impact your Alvernia degree has had on your career thus far?
I feel like my Alvernia education put me in a place where I could compete with anyone else that had graduated from any other school. I didn’t leave my career because I wasn’t thriving, I left my career because I was ready for a change. When I left, I needed to focus on my children because of the pandemic and you know Max was very young. I took a step back for a couple of months. Alvernia prepared me. I started at Iron Mountain in a very level one customer care, call center, answering calls and within the first six months I got promoted, then I got promoted to team lead, then I got promoted again to team lead, then supervisor. I just feel like Alvernia prepared me to be able to communicate well and to perform well. I don’t know how else to say it. Alvernia literally prepared me and then for having a Business degree and now owning a business, it feels natural like a natural progression. A lot of the stuff behind the scenes with Texture Curl Bar, I did on my own. I opened my LLC. I got my EIN number. I got my insurance, like all these things that I probably could have gotten help from someone else, but I did on my own because I learned a lot about how to set up a business going to Alvernia for Marketing.
Can you tell me what you were involved with when you were a student?
It’s been so long! I was on the dance team for all four years. I was part of the BSU and I think it was all four years. At the end I was the President of the club. I was very involved on the campus. I was an RA. I am trying to remember what all I did. I worked in Admissions, Financial Aid. I worked with the office of Multicultural Initiatives. Wow, I did a lot! Who else did I work with? The Career Center working on resumes. I was a Tour Guide. You name it, I was involved in it.
Do you have a favorite memory from campus?
When Alvernia went from Alvernia College to 鶹Ƶ, I was there for that on the quad. That was very amazing to witness that. That was a big moment for the school and to say that I was there. I remember it was like Fall of ’08 and it was awesome, but also witnessing the growth. How Alvernia has grown is incredible. I went back like a year ago, more or less, and to just see how big the campus is. There was no football team when I was there and all these apartment buildings that are there now and the new gym. None of that was there so to see everything from how it was then to how it is now, like Wow Alvernia is amazing and I love it!
Can you tell me either an interesting fact about yourself or maybe a hobby that you’re really into?
I don’t know. I feel like I don’t have time to do anything that I’m into at this point. I don’t even know what’s interesting about me at this point. I don’t have time to think.
If you had a complete day to yourself, like no kids, no husband, you don’t have to worry about your job, what would you do with that day?
Oh, this is so sad, I would sleep! I would probably eat. I don’t know a salad because I’ve been eating so bad lately.
What is one piece of advice that you would tell a current student?
I had a client in here the other day and she’s in high school. She was saying that she was talking to a recruiter and he wanted to recruit her to work on cars and I was like, “Do you want to do that?” and she was like “No, my dream is to go work for Disney.” She was saying that she is a theatre kid and she likes to act. I was like, “Oh, are you a talented singer?” and she was like, “I’m okay.” So, I said, “Sing me a song.” So, if you go to my Instagram, you will see that she sang not one but two songs like a medley with one song going into the other. She is so talented and her voice is so good. I was like, “Why would you go work on cars and waste your talent, like your God-given natural talent?” My advice to people and my advice to myself would be follow your talent. Even though the salon kind of came as like a turn, like a little pivot in what I was doing. When I was in high school, I went to Reading High, class of ’08 and then I went to vo-tech. I wanted to do cosmetology in vo-tech and I did not because I feel bad asking my parents for the money for the kit with the mannequins and you know these tools and stuff. I ended up going for my second love, which is sewing. I like to sew. I like fashion. I like anything visual beauty, you know like fashion art. I really am into that. Thinking back, if I would have done cosmetology back when I wanted to originally, I wonder what would have been, but instead of going for my natural God-given talents, I kind of went in different routes, which eventually led me here. I would tell myself and anyone else if you have a passion; if you have a talent, if you are naturally good at something follow that and see where it takes you. If it doesn’t work out there are always other options.
