With three generations of barbers, a Salem family stays in business one haircut at a time

Jerry Norton entered the barbering profession out of love. Decades later, his whole family still makes a living cutting hair.

He owns The Barbers, a family business with one location on Lancaster Drive in Salem and another in Stayton.

The family is observing nearly 50 years in barbering in the Salem area.

Norton is married to Sena Norton, whose father Jerry Booze founded Salem Barber College in 1964. Although it no longer exists, Salem Barber College was instrumental in training thousands of barbers and beauticians in the Willamette Valley, and even successfully lobbied the Oregon Legislature to lower the minimum hours necessary to get licensed as a barber. 

“That was really advantageous to the people looking to do barbering, because they didn’t really want to do beauty work,” Norton said. 

Booze also founded another school called the Hair Factory, where students also did beauty work. However, “his heart was always into barbering,” Norton said. 

The family was destined to shape the future of the barbering industry in Salem.

Booze was known for getting to know his clients and providing them the best service so they kept coming back. One generation later, the Nortons have incorporated that ethic into their everyday work. 

“If you put yourself out there and give it 100%, they come back. I love going the extra mile for the client. There are people who have been coming back to us for 35 or 40 years,” he said.

Norton jokes that he often feels like a psychiatrist when cutting hair.

“They tell you everything, and it’s really enjoyable to hear what’s going on in their life,” he said. “You make a lot of friendships.” 

He has learned to interpret movements and expressions to know how much conversation to give his clients. 

“It’s an art to know whether you want to talk. There’s a number of people who don’t really want to talk much, but most of them do,” he said.

Their business also serves children, people with disabilities, and those who would normally not feel comfortable getting haircuts. 

Children, who are often very active and may move during haircuts, are surprisingly calm and comfortable at the barber shop. 

One element to make children’s haircuts enjoyable, Norton said, is the shop’s spaceship-shaped seat. 

“Once they get in that rocket ship, even if it’s their first haircut, they want to come back,” he said.

Barbers also play cartoons during haircuts to keep kids distracted.

The Nortons and their children — all of whom are barbers — also have many clients with disabilities or special needs. Barbers always have in mind that some clients may suffer from anxiety, developmental issues or reduced mobility. 

“They’re people too, and they deserve good service,” he said. 

Norton finds that many of these clients have bad experiences at other shops or are rejected outright, like in the case of neurodivergent children who move erratically. He makes sure that they all have a place at The Barbers. 

“At the end of the day, it’s all about just making your clients happy,” Norton said.

He sees working with his wife Sena and their four children — Niki, Jasmine, Cory and Bailey — as “a real blessing, because you can really count on them.”

“Nothing better than being able to work with your own family members,” he said.

At the Lancaster Drive shop, his words ring true as Niki keeps busy cutting hair, cleaning, and organizing appointments, always with a smile on her face. 

Contact reporter Alan Cohen: [email protected].

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