People that know Courtney Michelle, owner of CocoMichelle Salon and Spa, might notice that she changes the color and style of her hair often -- at some point in her life, every color of the rainbow has been represented in one of Michelle’s hairdos.
Less perceivable to the eye than Michelle’s ever-changing hairstyles are the various figurative hats the Longmont business owner wears. Throughout her life, Michelle has culminated passions for a diverse range of subjects including math, science, traveling, languages, teaching and cosmetology. Between haircuts and wax appointments, Michelle always finds time to participate in things she feels connected to.
A Texas native, Michelle recalls her childhood being consumed by moving from place to place. Her family never stayed in one city for more than three years.
Throughout high school, Michelle loved science and math classes the most. As Michelle prepared to graduate high school in 1990, she applied to the engineering program at University of Texas Austin.
After she was accepted into the program, however, a new opportunity arose for 18-year-old Michelle when she was selected to be a Rotary exchange student from Texas to Norway. Faced with the decision between attending college in her home state and uprooting her life again but, this time, to spend a year in a foreign country, Michelle chose the latter option – a choice that would shape Michelle into the person she is today.
While in Norway, Michelle lived with three different host families and attended a local school. Despite having to adjust from the constant Texas heat to a winter with sub-zero temperatures, Michelle enjoyed the year she spent in Norway. Most notably, Michelle accredits this experience for opening her mind to a new language, culture and “different ways of doing things,” she said.
Inspired by “what happened in my brain by learning a new language in an immersive way,” Michelle returned to Texas and altered her original plan to study engineering.
Michelle studied linguistics and Scandinavian studies at the University of Texas at Austin and graduated with her degree in 1996. In the midst of her college career, Michelle found herself plagued with the “travel bug” and took a gap year from school to live in Berlin, Germany. There, she mastered the German language with ease and recognized not only her passion, but also her gift for learning new languages.
After making many friends from India during her travels, Michelle began studying Hindi when she returned to college.
In the few years following graduation from college, Michelle remained in Austin working as a database manager. During this time, she started pursuing another life-long desire – attending cosmetology school.
As far back as childhood, Michelle remembers having a knack for cutting and styling hair, doing makeup and making people feel pretty, she said. Although she expressed interest in pursuing a career in cosmetology starting at a young age, she was consistently discouraged from attending beauty school and, instead, expected to attend a university.
“I am proud of my degree. But, as a vocation, I always thought, ‘it’d be fun to do hair for a living,’” Michelle said.
Michelle’s cosmetology school experience in Austin was cut short after three months, the result of an opportunity to work for a small study abroad program. In the last couple years of the 90s, Michelle bounced between jobs at small tech companies.
In early 2000, Michelle found herself in Colorado for the first time to visit friends and check out the state’s ski mountains. On this trip, Michelle learned that tech companies were booming in Colorado and many were hiring employees.
Michelle decided to try her hand and turned in an application to work for a tech company. By summer, Michelle was offered a position in Colorado and she was trading in her life in Austin for a fresh start in Longmont.
Michelle’s new life in Longmont was quickly followed by another milestone moment for the young woman – buying her first home. The purchase meant Michelle could bid adieu to the uprooting feeling she experienced every few years during her childhood.
“Since I moved around a lot as a kid, I was so excited to buy my first home and actually be rooted in a community,” Michelle said. “Nobody could tell me I had to move again.”
By 2004, the decline in the economy meant lay-offs at Sun Microsystems and Michelle was among those who the company let go. At this point, Michelle knew she had her choice of what she wanted to pursue next and she compiled a list of her top four ideas.
Firstly, Michelle said, she could go back to work in the high tech industry; secondly, she could apply to graduate schools to pursue a PhD in linguistics; thirdly, she could sell her house in Longmont, move somewhere overseas and teach English as a foreign language; fourthly, she could re-enroll in cosmetology school.
After weighing the possibilities and receiving input from her “very logical” brother, Michelle opted for the fourth option.
“I decided that I really love the town of Longmont and I didn’t want to leave,” Michelle said. “I was like, ‘you know what, I’m going to go back to cosmetology school, get my license and work on hair and skin.’”
When Michelle began attending Longs Peak Academy, a cosmetology school in Longmont, at 31-years-old, she found she was ahead of her peers in terms of age and experience. Michelle’s past experiences influenced her attitude toward beauty school.
“I just considered going to school like my next job,” she said. “I had a mortgage and I had to support myself, so I needed to get through school as fast and efficiently as possible.”
Although Michelle felt a sense of urgency to get through cosmetology school, she found that her classes not only fulfilled her desire to learn how to make people feel beautiful – Michelle was also able to apply her passion for science to the lessons and, in turn, her excitement to teach others.
Michelle recalled reading a two-page lesson about perms and feeling dissatisfied with the lack of information, specifically on the science behind the hair treatment. Michelle turned to her teacher for answers as to how perms work in terms of the chemicals they utilize. Feeling discontent with her teacher’s response – “I can’t tell you any more than what’s in the book,” the teacher replied – Michelle turned to the Internet to find answers. After discovering a verified chemical analysis of how perms work online, Michelle brought her findings to the classroom and shared them with her classmates.
“I got up in front of the class and explained how perms work chemically,” Michelle said. “So even as a student, I was trying to help teach other people with what I learned on the side.”
By 2005, Michelle had finished cosmetology school, secured her cosmetology license and started working at the salon Evolutions in Longmont. Two years later, she took over ownership of the salon and turned it into her own business, CocoMichelle Salon and Spa.
In addition to becoming a business owner in 2007, Michelle applied and was selected by Longmont Sister Cities Association, or LSCA, to chaperone a youth foreign exchange trip to Mexico.
Volunteering to chaperone kids while they embarked on the exchange trip felt like an “amazing opportunity” for Michelle to fulfill her passion for travel, revisit the world of foreign exchanges and “help kids get a little taste of that (worldly) perspective” she obtained in Norway years ago, Michelle said.
After a great first experience volunteering for the program in 2007, Michelle returned to chaperone another foreign exchange in Mexico in 2011.
Following that trip, Michelle joined the board of LSC. For the past three years, she has acted as vice president of the organization.
While serving in this position, Michelle had a hand in the partnering of Longmont and the Northern Arapaho of Wind River becoming sister cities last month – the first time in Sister Cities international history that a Native American sovereign tribal nation has become a sister city with another city, Michelle said.
Today, Michelle also serves on the Transportation Advisory Board which she sees as another testament to her deep love for and devotion to the city of Longmont.
In between all her activities, Michelle still runs CocoMichelle Salon and Spa.
“In this business, I have found that when people feel beautiful, they have more confidence and they feel better about themselves,” Michelle said. “If I can help them achieve that goal or look the way they want to look, I feel like I am helping them.”
