(Radio Iowa) – A northwest Iowa woman who started a dog grooming business at age 17 and eventually built a nationwide educational program for training groomers is being recognized as Iowa’s Small Business Person of the Year. The Iowa regional office of the U-S Small Business Administration is honoring Sierra Elbert of Emmetsburg as founder and president of Groom Curriculum, and her business partner Patricia Pierce. Elbert says she recognized the need to elevate industry standards and expand access to professional grooming education.
“We are changing lives. We have people from shelters learning how to become dog groomers, meaning women’s shelters, like battery, like homeless, and we’re truly giving them that hand up and not a handout,” Elbert says. “It’s something that no one could take from you. Once you know the skill of this trade, you have that forever and you can always make an income and you can always put food on the table for your family.”
Elbert and Pierce launched Groom Curriculum in 2022, the first standardized, college-accredited grooming education platform in the country. Elbert says their 15-week course is being taught in multiple environments, including high schools, community colleges, salons, trade schools, and prisons. “We have a total of 47 partners throughout the nation,” Elbert says, “and then on average, I would say about 1,000 students a year that we’re teaching the trade of dog grooming, and they’re making some jobs out of it and having a lifelong career.”
Elbert says Groom Curriculum provides credentialed education for those new to the profession as well as continuing education for professionals at every stage of their careers. The COVID-19 pandemic forced many barber shops and salons to close, along with most pet groomers, and Elbert says it showed people how skilled you need to be to cut hair — for people and for pets.
“It is a lot harder than a lot of people assume it would be, and the pandemic definitely revealed that for the whole world to know,” Elbert says, laughing. “We saw some funky haircuts from the pet owners when the dog grooming salons were shut down, and they were ever more grateful for us since then.” As the statewide winner, Elbert and Pierce will represent Iowa at National Small Business Week in Washington D.C. in May, where they’ll be in the running for the title of National Small Business Persons of the Year.
