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By Mandy Haggerson

For the Clemmons Courier

Like many football fans this past weekend, Julie Barham was disappointed to see the Bills get close but not all the way to the Super Bowl. Growing up in western New York, Barham became a big fan from an early age. 

Aside from being a football enthusiast, as a child she also enjoyed attending many sporting games as a cheerleader.

“I did gymnastics and all the things that it took to improve with cheerleading. I even kept doing it through college at Gannon University where I studied international business and French,” revealed Barham. “I had gotten the travel bug when my high school French club had traveled to France and England. It was something that stayed with me throughout life. I figured that finding a career that would allow me to explore new parts of the world would be a great way to satisfy that urge to travel.” 

However, Barham would soon realize her life would take a different turn.

“I was visiting my mother who had moved to Florida and met a military man,” said Barham. “I knew there was something special about Corey when I met him. I didn’t end up going back to college, and Corey and I were married.”

The newlyweds decided to start their family not long after getting married.

“The timing was tough because Corey deployed to the Persian Gulf. During those times, communication wasn’t what it is now, so if I missed a call from him, it was really hard on you. Fortunately, he returned 6 weeks prior to delivering our first son, Geoff,” said Barham. “We had our second son just 14 months later, Isaac. During this time, I stayed home full time with the children. Our daughter, Eleanor was born 3 years after Isaac.” 

With their expanding family, Corey had decided to retire from the military.

“Someone had advised Corey to consider being a barber. He got his license in 6 months, and that began his career, and little did I know, set the foundation I could also participate in,” alluded Barham. 

As the children got older, Barham knew that she wanted to finish school.

“I had never worked outside the home, so I began a program that was geared towards homemakers. They also paid for me to go back to community college to earn my associate degree,” noted Barham. 

Once she graduated, Barham got a job at a law firm doing estate planning.

“I then taught estate planning through a bank, and realized how much I enjoyed helping people plan for their future. There was something empowering about helping others make sound choices,” mentioned Barham. “Around the same time, Corey also started teaching cosmetology, and bought a salon. He realized that I enjoyed the behind the scenes of helping people and thought us coming together to work for the same business with the same goal had lots of synergy. I got my license, and so began our business venture of working together.” 

With grown children, and knowing they wanted to explore their entrepreneurial spirit together, they decided to move to North Carolina in 2001.

“We had just survived two back-to-back hurricanes and realized we love warm weather, but not the unpredictability. We moved to North Carolina to start over and hoped to build a business in an industry we both loved,” explained Barham. 

When Barham established her roots initially, she worked for JC Penney in their salon divisions.

“I worked with local distributors selling supplies to salons. I saw inadequacies of education locally and wanted to bridge an obvious gap. I wanted people in my industry to have the same learning opportunities that I had been afforded. Corey and I were able to do just that when we won a local contest through the business center at Forsyth Tech. We placed second and used that as seed money to begin our first beauty school, Dermacademy,” said Barham. 

With their first class consisting of just one night student, Corey also taught at Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in the interim.

“I’ve always loved how he is such a talented hairdresser. Still to this day, if anyone is having a technical issue, or the color isn’t working, he identifies the issue instantly. I began shooting a bunch of videos and doing virtual tours to try and get the word out. I would deliver kits when someone enrolled for an online class to their front doors,” remembered Barham. 

Through Corey’s talented eye, and Julie’s business knack, Dermacademy steadily grew, and classes were filling up and selling out.

“We even had to do night classes to meet the demand. We were grateful to bring the level of education we felt was needed for this industry to our area. We also adapted when we learned we needed an esthetics option too, and opened up the Ailing Institute,” revealed Barham.

Today they have 60 students, and 15 employees, although Barham insists, “we prefer to call them teammates. Nothing could happen without the collaboration of our team.”

The latest exciting news that has inspired Barham is that Dermacademy and the Ailing Institute will now allow students to apply for Pell grants and be eligible for student loans.

“We wanted our students to be able to get what they needed to be successful. Graduating and becoming accredited is not how we measure success. Giving them the tools to one day retire from a career they love and thrived in is what we strive for,” explained Barham. 

If not inspiring students, Barham says it’s important to go to Capitol Hill annually to inform legislators about bills that effect their industry.

“We are the only school in the area that is part of the American Association of Cosmetology Schools, and we know that fighting potential regulation that could be harmful is important. At the end of the day, if Corey and I can make a difference in any capacity, we will gladly step up and make it happen,” Barham said.