I am Ashlee Norman and I am passionate about Hair, Entertainment, and Education!My love affair with hairstyling really caught flame while performing in my high school theater program, as my original ambition to become an actress quickly dissipated when I discovered my true artistry in hairstyling backstage. My professional career started in High School in 2003 as I took advantage of ROP (regional occupation program) for Cosmetology, but my education did not stop there. From the beginning of my apprenticeship to this day, I continue my education constantly through top industry academies as well as independent educational sources. Easily I have invested over $100K traveling to all the fashion cities of the world pursuing advanced industry education.My pursuit for knowledge even extends in traditional areas of business as I also pursued, and achieved with honors in 2014, my Bachelor’s degree in Fashion Merchandising while working full time as a Hairstylist/ Salon Educator. Four years into my career as a hairstylist, in 2007, I began my journey as an educator when I was promoted to Bumble and bumble Network Educator at a Salon in Los Angeles, California. After 7 years as an in salon educator, it was time for the next adventure in my career. I organically grew a following of peers in my industry through posting on social media. Becoming an Independent Educator in 2015 was a natural transition. Now I travel to teach hairstylists internationally as well as work in global brands including Schwarkopf Professional and K18 Hair.On average I have taught 30-45 classes in 15-20 cities every year over the better part of a decade. In addition to traveling to teach in-person, I have developed a large offering of online education, consistently releasing new courses digitally since 2018. As an extension of my Education, I offer custom tools and apparel that help make modern hairstyling easier! This is a purely family owned and operated business as my tools are manufactured by my father and distributed by my mother. We’ve been proud to showcase our products with booths and class rooms at international trades shows including IBS, ABS, and Premiere shows. I built all this while starting a family, having 3 children from 2015 - 2022. I traveled and toured with my education through all 3 pregnancies and breastfeeding through babies 1st year of life with the help of my mother-in-law as a traveling nanny. Physically and emotionally it was extremely exhausting to continue to grow my education brand at the same time as my family. I say AN Academy was built on blood, sweat, tears, and breastmilk! My Education philosophy is to teach Theory first. One off techniques/placements or tips/tricks are not enough because they require memorization. I believe in teaching logic instead because that allows students to use their own critical thinking. A live demonstration is showing one “How” or giving the solution to one problem. Explaining the “How” is teaching how to problem solve.