Q: What prompted you to leave your job in the mineral mining industry to open a franchised hair color salon?
A: I had been president of two different mineral companies and, at one time, owned a minerals company that was based in India. The last company I worked with was based in Chicago, and we were investing in opportunities around the globe.
We were doing some business in Turkey and were staying at the Swissôtel, a very nice hotel in Istanbul. At 11:30 Sunday evening, April 22, 2001, 21 armed Chechen rebels took over the hotel. A hundred and four of us were held hostage.
It was something that caused my wife and me to rethink our futures. We decided to move from Chicago back to Denver, primarily because we had family here. I negotiated my way out of the corporate world.
Q: How was the hostage situation resolved?
A: There had been a lot of conflict between the Russian army and Chechen, sort of, freedom fighters. The foreign minister of Turkey came to the hotel sometime around 6 or 7 a.m. and negotiated for them to lay down their guns and walk out. They were carted off in a bus. I think they went to jail, but they were eventually taken back to Chechnya.
Q: What happened after that?
A: When we were released Monday at noon, I had a ticket to fly from Istanbul to Beijing. Most people thought I would have gotten on a plane and gone back home, but I had important business in Beijing.
I went to Beijing, and the next day, we took a trip to look at a mineral property in the mountains. We were stopped by a man on a horse who wanted to know why the people I was with were harboring a Falun Gong (a controversial Chinese spiritual movement) sympathizer and wanted to take us to a camp somewhere. We had our geologist from China with us, and he negotiated our passage out of the place. That also convinced me that I needed to change what I was doing.
Q: Did the experience in Turkey change you in ways other than prompting you to change careers?
A: It changed a lot about me. That was the first time in my life I was in a situation where I didn’t think I was going to survive. It’s not like a close call in a car accident. This is sitting there and seeing people with AK-47s and having time to think about not seeing your wife and children again.
When I came back – even though I didn’t fly directly home – my wife and I sat down and talked. I was tired, I was worn out, and I felt like this was sort of a message that I needed to slow down and do something else.
Q: Why did you choose the salon industry?
A: One of my son-in-law’s uncles is a real estate broker, and he was doing some work for this new franchise out of Fort Lauderdale called Haircolorxperts. I did a little bit of research and went to Florida to meet the owner, a gentleman named Larry Feldman who created the franchise model for Subway. That’s what appealed to me. It was an exciting, fast-growing salon business that was built on a very sound business model.
Q: Why did you decide to go with a franchised business rather than launching your own salon?
A: Statistically, businesses that are franchised are generally more successful. We are the No. 2 Haircolorxperts salon in the country. We were just chosen as small business of the year by the Highlands Ranch Chamber of Commerce. It has been very successful.
Q: Have you ever colored your hair?
A: We were kind of slow on a Sunday and the girls here convinced me to let them color my hair. It looked different than what I had, so I said, “OK, let’s just cut it off.” So I ended up with short hair, and I like it short. I like the graying look for me.
Edited for space and clarity from an interview by staff writer Kristi Arellano.
