Wagner cuts corporate heads
Executive Forum combines modern salon services with barbershop charm
Don Wagner welcomes his customer with teasing words and tells him to take a seat in the old-fashioned barber’s chair. He whips out an apron with a slight snap and drapes it over the seated man, quickly and efficiently fastening it at the neck. Wagner slides a small, buzzing black-and-chrome device onto his hand, and begins administering a scalp massage. The duration of the massage is the only time banter ceases between the barber and his customer. All this is just a prelude to the haircut.
Wagner, owner of Executive Forum, 405 Sixth Ave., has been a barber for 47 years. His brother was a barber before him in their hometown of Manning. Watching his brother on the job made Wagner realize cutting hair was what he wanted to do, too. After a brief stint in the Army, he attended barber school in Des Moines. One of the men who gave him a final examination offered him a job.
“I asked my brother if it was OK, and he said ‘Sure. You can always come back to Manning if you need to,'” Wagner said.
In 1956, Wagner went to work in the Roosevelt Shopping Center. He mainly served families there, and gave many little boys their first haircuts. “So many I couldn’t begin to put my finger on it,” he said.
In 1959, he established his own shop, Don’s, on the first floor of 405 Sixth Ave. Ten years later, he moved to the ninth floor and changed his business’s name to Executive Forum to reflect his core clientele. The shop remained there until the building was included in the skywalk system in 1983. Wagner then moved his shop to the second floor.
“In the pre-skywalk days, the first floor was high rent,” he said. “Now those spaces are vacant.”
Executive Forum is a careful mixture of an old-fashioned barber shop and a modern salon. Wagner still gives the occasional straight-razor shave. A blue-and-red-striped barber’s pole twirls beside the shoeshine station in the waiting area. Styling products are lined up in an antique display case, and swinging saloon-style doors lead to the heart of the shop.
Wagner’s four employees include stylists, cosmetologists and a manicurist. Wagner said he realized he would have to adapt in the 1960s as styles changed and men began wearing their hair long. He said another harbinger of change came in the late 1960s, when a lawyer named Lex Hawkins challenged an Iowa law that banned men from entering women’s salons. He did so by making a hair appointment and inviting the press. Not long after, the rule was abolished and unisex salons became popular in the state. Today, 70 to 75 percent of Executive Forum’s customers are female.
Wagner has had some impressive customers over the years, including many business and community leaders. He cuts former Gov. Robert Ray’s hair, and has an extensive list of noteworthy customers, which he guards out of discretion and out of worry.
“I’d accidentally leave someone off the list, and they might get upset,” he said. As powerful decision-makers sit in his chairs, Wagner says it’s not unusual for them to discuss their business deals.
“Well, they use code words and think I don’t know what they’re talking about,” he said, “but I can usually … well, let’s just say that a little while later, I’ll be reading the newspaper and either think, ‘Oh, so that’s what they meant,’ or ‘I was right!'”
Danne Jones, an executive with AmerUs Group Co., has had his hair cut by Wagner since the late 1980s, but describes himself as a newcomer to the shop. He says he comes back because of the service, the “casual, yet elegant” atmosphere, the lively conversation and the chemistry.
“Besides, I couldn’t go anywhere else because I’d feel like I was cheating on him,” Jones said, firing off one riff in their continual banter.
“I can pretty much tell the first time a guy’s in my chair,” Wagner said. “Usually by the time the cut’s over, you know whether you’re going to get along or not.”
Wagner says location is the most important part of barbering, because it will determine who your customers are. His location has yielded customers who fascinate him.
“I’ve enjoyed all phases of this business,” he said. “It’s been very good to me, and everything just gets better. That’s the natural trend of things.”