NCA Honors behindthechair.com founder Mary Rector-Gable

Mary, who operates the world’s largest community website for salon professionals, has been instrumental in bringing the salon industry together to help its own following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. After receiving e-mails within 24 hours of the disaster from salon professionals needing help and from those offering assistance, Mary and her team rallied to build bulletin board communications to bring the two groups together. Behindthechair.com also launched a canister label campaign and offered salon professionals fundraising ideas. Through the website’s efforts, salons across the country raised more than $100,000.

Those making donations needed a central fund to receive and disburse the money. Mary was the first person to call the NCA to ask if the association could accept funding. That initial call inspired the NCA to reach out to the other associations and corporations, causing a ripple effect that called the entire professional beauty industry to action to help salon professionals on the Gulf Coast. On the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Mary again stepped forward, inviting NCA Disaster Relief Fund Chairperson Sam Brocato and NCA Executive Director Gordon Miller to speak at the behindthechair.com Stylist Choice Awards. This resulted in a $40,000 donation taking the NCA Disaster Relief Fund over the $1 million mark.

“Mary Rector-Gable and her team’s efforts jump-started the NCA Disaster Relief Fund/Katrina and she was instrumental in taking it past $1 million in donations which helped hundreds of salon professionals devastated on the Gulf Coast,” says NCA President Marlene Bridge. “With this special award, we honor Mary and thank her for her continued work to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina.”

Mary has recently teamed with Vidal Sassoon to launch Hairdressers Unlocking Hope, a new charitable cause focused on rebuilding homes lost in Katrina. On the horizon: a five-city “Coming Home” tour with Vidal Sassoon and an awareness advertising campaign featuring celebrity hairdressers.

The NCA Disaster Relief Fund was created in 1956 to help salon professionals rebuild their businesses following devastation from natural disasters. Following Hurricane Katrina, an all-industry fundraising effort including corporate donations from Aveda, behindthechair.com, Chicago Midwest Beauty Show, IBS New York, Paul Mitchell, PureOlogy, Redken, Sally Beauty Company and others and individual salon professionals including members of NCA, TSA, PBS, Intercoiffure and AACS have donated more than $1 million dollars. Donations are tax deductible and 100 percent of all funds raised go directly to salon professionals in need. To date, more than 600 salon professionals have received aid with the average grant being $1,600.

For more information on the NCA Disaster Relief Fund or to make a donation, salon professionals can visit www.ncacares.org or call 1-866-871-0656.

The National Cosmetology Association (NCA) is the largest organization of salon professionals in the world. Its mission, since its inception in 1921, has been and continues to be to ensure that working salon professionals have the tools and resources available to create career success with integrity. For more information on NCA, visit www.ncacares.org.