A warm welcome to the newest member of the People 1st team Michael Ward.
Michael is the new Barbering Tutor in our Belfast and Lurgan Training Academy salons and will be teaching across Level 1, 2 and 3 NVQ qualifications in Barbering.
You could rightly say that barbering is in Michaels blood as he is the sixth generation in his family to choose barbering as a career! Michael initially wanted to try out hospitality when he left school but soon realised that hairdressing and barbering was his true calling when he enrolled to study hairdressing in Belfast, aged 18.
This start in hairdressing gave Michael a fantastic grounding in scissor skills, colouring and styling and when cutting mens hair he quickly realised that where he really excelled and so his barbering journey really began… and what a journey that has been!!
On completion of his studies in Belfast, Michael returned to his home town of Banbridge aged 20 and just a year later had opened his own barbering salon! Michael knew he wanted to learn from the best so attended every hair trade show and competition to build industry knowledge and watch the best in the business practicing their techniques to a live audience, and then led him to take part in the same competitions himself across the UK and Ireland, winning a variety of prestigious hair awards-including the coveted NI Barber Championship and the All Ireland Barbering Championship in 2009 and 2010 respectively. He also won the L’Oreal Mens Image Award in London and was selected to be part of their specialist NI Hairdressing team at tthios time. All the top accolades that any professional would want!!
After achieving his goals of winning all these awards, Michael hung up his competition boots and set about expanding the business by opening another Barbers salon in Newry. He also became a father during this time and after years of working in the busy barbering business, he decided it was time for a change. By running private courses in salon over the years Michael loved teaching others the skills he had picked up over the the timing felt right to start sharing this knowledge with more students so he decided to move into teaching, with People 1st.
We are so lucky to have him join the People 1st team with the wealth of knowledge, experience and talent that he is bringing along with him and our students are going to benefit so much from this!!! We are so excited to see how the barbering training goes from strength to strength and his goal is to teach his students all the skills that he has picked over the years and how to approach the wide variety of ways you can cut, style and colour mens hair. These classes will be held across all levels and will be open to school leavers, apprentices and also private learners so DM us to find out more!!
We hope you all join us in wishing Michael a warm welcome to the People 1st team and keep an eye out for him in our Barbering Training Academies!!!!! We will be sharing stories from Michael and his students as we go along over the coming months!!
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