Jeremy Scheifflee was happily working as a relatively new hairdresser at
Ficocello’s salon in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area when the owners
offered a trip to the Sam Brocato Academy in NYC to the stylist who
sold the most Brocato products during a specific month. Scheifflee
badly wanted to earn that trip, but when the retail sales were totaled,
a team member had topped him.
“I was so bummed,” Scheifflee
recalls. “But something kept telling me, ‘You should do this anyway.’ I
asked our salon’s business manager how much the course cost. It was
$950 plus hotel and airfare! I didn’t have that money.”
But the
business manager felt Scheifflee’s pain. Here was a passionate hair
artist who thirsted for the best education he could find, and lots of
it. The business manager called the Brocato Academy, negotiated a
discount on the tuition and offered to take $50 out of Scheifflee’s
paycheck each month until the salon was reimbursed. Scheifflee did have
to come up with the airfare, but he shared a hotel room with the team
member who had won the trip.
Scheifflee was thrilled. He
expected the experience to be eye-opening and exciting and rich in
ideas he could bring back to his work in the Twin Cities. What he
didn’t expect was that it would shape the rest of his career and change
his life.
“I was completely enthralled,” notes Scheifflee. “At
the end of the second day, the education director pulled me aside and
said, ‘Sam’s been watching you. Would you be interested in doing
education work?’ I didn’t know whether I was ready for that yet, but I
said, ‘Sure.’ About two weeks later she called to invite me to come out
to the next Academy.”
During that session, Brocato put
Scheifflee on the spot, calling on him to explain the styles and the
products to the rest of the class. “I was sweating bullets and freaking
out!” exclaims Scheifflee. But he impressed his host, who invited him
to join the Brocato Creative Design Team. Scheifflee has worked with
Sam Brocato ever since, traveling the world to teach classes. In 2008,
when Brocato opened a salon in Manhattan, Scheifflee moved east to work
at the new location. He takes clients while continuing to educate and
design trend releases.
“Now I get to work with Oscar Bond and
Vivienne Mackinder, who both come into the salon sometimes,” Scheifflee
comments. “I always ask them for advice. I’ve always been one to ask
about what I did wrong and what I can do better. It’s great that I have
these icons to draw from. I guess I was born to do this, and I just
can’t get enough. They teach me, and I train the next teachers who will
become better than I am.”