Becker Chicaiza”™s career as a hairdresser started simply enough. When he was a teenager in Ecuador, he began cutting his younger sister”™s hair. “I had a feel for it,” he said of his innate ability to cut and style hair with only a pair of ordinary scissors. Then he began cutting his mother”™s hair, then his mother”™s employees”™ hair, then her friends”™ hair. “It just kept growing and growing,” he said of the list of women and men who had heard about him. “Then people started to give me some money, tips. I was working three days a week.”
Chicaiza”™s sisters encouraged him to pursue hairdressing as a career. “My sisters say, ”˜You have a natural talent,”™ ”˜We can see your future.”™” But his mother didn”™t see the same future for him; she saw college and a professional career. “”˜All your cousins are professionals; you have to do the same,”™” he said she told him. But when he was in high school he told her he wanted to go to hairdressing school. “In Ecuador they give classes every Saturday for three years,” he said. “She said, ”˜No.”™ She was a typical mother.”
Chicaiza walked that fine line between being obedient to his mother and being obedient to his inner compass that pointed in a different direction. He went to college and studied business administration, and on Saturday, he went to hairdresser school. Then, in 2000 when he graduated from the Technical University of Ecuador, he followed his father to the United States. “He was a mechanic in Port Chester, N.Y.,” he said.
Chicaiza nailed a job at the Greenwich Country Club in the laundry room, then worked for a few Greenwich salons as a colorist while he studied for his state hairdressing license, which he received in 2003. For the next four years he worked at two more Greenwich salons, finally striking out on his own last April when he opened Becker Salon on Mason Street in Greenwich. While some would see that as the fulfillment of a dream, Chicaiza sees the salon as the beginning of his dream. Within eight years, he said, he hopes to have another salon in Westport or Fairfield, another in Manhattan, and a fourth in Paris, France.
“I know it”™s a lot of responsibility, a lot of work,” he said, but “that”™s my dream.”
Exclusive quality
Chicaiza”™s international dream was fed by his global travels to attend classes to build his professional skills. “The first class I went to was in Paris in 2003 for color and cuts,” he said of his two-week stay there. “I feel like I had a sense in my heart, a wish that some day to open other salons,” he said, searching for English words to express his dream. “One day I want to go to France and open my own shop in Paris, to open a very nice place. My target is that I want to help people, to give jobs to people, to make nice salons.”
In 2004 he traveled to Milan, Italy, for a week”™s class on hair cutting and styling, and in 2005 was back in Paris for a week-long class on hair coloring. The following year he was in London “for one of the top classes in the world for haircutting and coloring.” The week-long course was sponsored by L”™Oreal ”“ which recently chose Becker Salon to be featured as one of the top salons in the country in L”™Oreal”™s magazine.
“Last year, I didn”™t go anywhere because I was working so hard at my business,” he said. But next year he plans on attending Cosmoprof classes ”“ “a huge company that has classes for the top hairdressers in the world” ”“ in Russia.
First, however, he”™s concentrating on building a clientele for his first salon ”“ a 900-square-foot, five-chair shop with furniture imported from Italy. Other salons, Chicaiza said, can have up to a dozen chairs for cutting and coloring, but he opted for a smaller boutique salon because “people from Greenwich want very exclusive quality.”
“I take care of my clients,” he said. “I try to make it a nice experience for them so that they feel comfortable and relaxed.” As for his next salon in lower Fairfield County, “I have to study the market. There”™s a lot of competition and I want to make a smart investment in the future.”
He has help to do that through his business partner and salon manager, Vincent Leclercq, who helped create Chicaiza”™s business plan, interior design for the salon, and oversaw the salon”™s construction. “Vincent is studying the market to see where to open another salon,” he said, probably within the next few years. “We have to be realistic and do it little by little.”
Paying the bills
Chicaiza may have international dreams for his salons, but he”™s still tied to the local community, providing free haircuts to hospital and nursing home patients and donating 1 percent of his salon”™s income to children”™s cancer research. Last month, he offered new customers a special price for haircuts, donating the money to Kids in Crises.
His passion for helping others began back in Ecuador, when a homeless man appeared at the Chicaiza family chicken business looking for food. “We gave him some food,” Chicaiza said, then offered him a bath and a change of clothes. “When I saw the guy, his hair was so long that I gave him a haircut,” he said. “Here in this country I sometimes buy breakfast in the morning for the homeless, or go to Dunkin”™ Doughnuts for coffee or a sandwich sometimes to give to the homeless people.”
“I like to do social work with kids and older people and the homeless,” he said. He volunteers at local nursing homes every three months, but “I go to the hospital right away when people are sick.” In a way, it”™s paying back for his own success. “Thank you, my Lord, for helping me,” he said, “for putting people in my life to help me.”
Chicaiza is on track for his dream of multiple salons by the time he”™s 40, in eight years. “So far, so good,” he said. “We have to do a lot of marketing, but we”™re paying the bills, so we”™re doing good.”
