Chad ’s Hair Store opened in 1990, and was leveraged from a barber shop of 25 years. It was an investment between Chad Fults and a business partner at the time: he had a staff, and the intentions were to keep his day-time job at a fancy salon in Huntington Beach.

Yet sadly, Chad ’s business partner committed suicide shortly after the store’s opening. In order to keep the business running, Chad had to quit his job in Huntington Beach to keep his investment alive and running. The Hair Store was closed for 2 days and revamped when Chad made his full-time debut: it was changed from a 1950s Mayberry style, to something more hip with a Hollywood movie theme.

Chad put a lot of time and effort in doing unusual promotions to draw attention as well as charitable work to give back to the community. For instance, promotions are initiated every year. One example was placing Pez dispensers in the window (almost 4,000 for 5 days straight) and next year with rubber ducks – people had to pay a dollar to guess the number of items to win free haircuts for the year, with all the proceeds going to the Susan G. Coleman breast cancer foundation.

Channel 9 news and OCN placed coverage on The Hair Store’s events, and on December 2000, The Hair Store made the cover of the Business section of the Orange County Register; it was the selected winner of the year’s best charitable work in community.

Another example of The Hair Store’s generosity is on Veterans Day: the shop is open to provide free haircuts to all veterans, all day long.

The Hair Store sponsored a marathon running team in 2003: the team ran the Los Angeles Marathon, Jimmy Stewart marathon, and the camp Pendleton mud run. The team was headed by Vince Hernandez, Chad , and his friend Brandon. Chad paid for all the t-shirts, entry fees, and participated by running in the marathon. All profits went to the ALS foundation in honor of Isabel Porrello. Isabel was a receptionist at a salon Chad worked at when he was 19 years old, and an old friend who had the disease. Vince was Isabel’s son-in-law, who put team together in her honor.

In October 2004, Chad ’s Hair Store won “Best of OC” in the OC weekly for the #1 place in OC to get your hair done.

Chad ’s Hair Store has been open for 15 years now. The salon and barbering is very important to Chad , but what’s more important is him being able to have the time to work on his art, painting and future projects he puts so much into.

Clients are big part of business: in 2004, the Hair Store put a new floor in. Two clients came and spent the weekend doing the floor for him! Chad ’s clients are loyal and amazingly appreciative of The Hair Store’s reputation. Anything Chad collects or decorates the store with has been passed on by clients for free. Without The Hair Store’s clients, it would not be at level it’s at today.

“Robert” is currently a member of Chad ’s staff and has been in Santa Ana for 30 years now: he handles the barbering in salon, and has been a strong figure in the Santa Ana community. His clients know him from either growing up together, umpiring baseball with him, and he’s known among the paramedics and Santa Ana fire department. He is also currently on the emergency response team in Orange County as a paramedic.

As Chad ’s Hair Store grows, so does its direction and future. Doing hair and being with clients is very important to Chad, yet as he gets older, his passion for art and creativity seems to occupy his thoughts.

Chad was born in Springfield, IL . His family moved to Southern CA when he was very young. Chad has always been into art, painting, drawing and even collecting. He never really had desire to be a hair dresser, yet around age 16, his mom took him to get his haircut at a true salon. The interest he found at that particular place somehow drew him to the industry.

Chad first started cutting hair in 1984 (age 19), and by 1988, he joined the southern CA hair team consisting of 4 hairdressers from southern CA. He tried out for team, along with his boss at the time (from a hair salon). Chad made the team; she did not. From there, he traveled with the team for 5 years: they did hair competitions against other states, taking 3 rd place in 1988 in New Orleans , LA , and took 4th out of 40 teams in San Jose, and CA in 1989. In 1990, they toured Cincinnati OH, in 1991 they were in Cleveland, OH. That same year he was dropped from the team and was picked up by the northern CA team in San Jose. Chad would fly every Saturday night to San Jose, cut hair all day Sunday with the team, and fly back to Orange County on Sunday night.

Chad's Education and Credentials

In 1986, Chad graduated from Sebring Institute, a certified design symposium. In 1989 he went to Cannes, France, with Sebastian international on a hair dresser exchange program. In 1995 he became an honorary Redkin color design specialist by Beth and Carmine Minardi.

In 2002, Chad was doing hair and makeup on commercials and film. He worked on the Witch Craft set 3 – 6 (available at any video store.) He quit the film industry shortly after he had his daughter.

In 2003, he freelanced for Mattel in Torrance, CA, doing Barbie Doll hair for TV commercials.

Some of Chad's Artistic Explorations

In 1990 he started to dabble in fashion design. Dabbling consisted of one jacket which was given to Brian Setzer, the lead singer of the band Stray Cats. Four months later, Setzer’s manager called Chad to inform him that the rock star wanted dinner with him at the Hollywood Palamino (a known restaurant / night club). It was so overwhelming and exciting for Chad (he was a big fan), that he ended his fashion design career that night – Chad felt like he topped out. A year later, Brian Setzer’s manager sent Chad a tour book program from Japan, with Brian wearing the jacket on the front cover.

Some of Chad’s artistic achievements involve a featured piece of monograph art at the Riverside County Art Museum. In 2002, he worked as an artist at Cafe Tu Tu Tango restaurant, in the Universal City Walk mall on Saturday nights.

What is Chad doing now?

Chad is currently engaged and has a 13 year old daughter. In free time he enjoys painting (oil, acrylic, canvas), reading books, and lately he’s been dabbling in writing. His plans for the not-so-far-future are to write a one man show script about a man’s life; he visions the shows to be done with himself and friend Robert Baldridge. Chad wants to write, produce, and be the starring lead.