First Choice Haircutters

Type	Hair salon chain
Founded	1980
Headquarters	Mississauga, Ontario, Canada
Number of locations	400+
Area served	North America
Key people	Bud Cowan (CEO)
Parent	Regis Corporation
Website	http://www.firstchoice.com/

First Choice Haircutters is a hairdressing company. The company originated as a salon in London, Ontario, in 1980. Currently it has over 400 locations all over Canada and the United States.^[1] It is a franchise company, and experienced system-wide sales of nearly $3 billion in 2007.^[1] First Choice Haircutters is today a subsidiary of Regis Corporation; the largest hair salon chain in the world, that also owns companies like Supercuts.^[2]

Contents 1 Company origin and profile 2 Related stories 3 References 4 External links

[edit] Company origin and profile

The company headquarters are located in Mississauga, Ontario, and chief executive officer and president is A. Bud Cowan.^[3] Cowan is also the founder of the chain, and is himself an award-winning barber and stylist. After opening the first salon in 1980, he started franchising the concept two years later.^[4][5]

Often located in strip malls, the company describes itself as targeting "value-conscious families".^[2] Most salons are 800–1000 square feet, with a minimum frontage of 15 feet.^[6] The salons operate on a drop-in basis.^[1]

[edit] Related stories

The Canadian actress Jacqueline MacInnes Wood, who later went on to act in the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful, made her début in a commercial for the company.^[7] She was only eighteen when she played the part of "the hair girl" on the commercial; the ad was still running three years later.^[8]

In August 2008, a First Choice Haircutters salon in Bowmanville, Ontario, was hit by an SUV that, for unknown reasons, crashed through the front window. There were no injuries resulting from the accident, as nobody was sitting in the chairs when it happened.^[9]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Company web page