Doug Warren is licensed by the California Department of Consumer Affairs "to do hair, skin and nails". In other words, he is a cosmetologist, not a barber. Under US regulatory provisions, a barber is confined to cutting hair.
Born in Sacramento, California, Doug has left his native country to escape the pervading gang-and-gun culture, and has now set up in Waterford what he calls "the south-east's first ever progressive school of hairdressing".
Aged 40, this Californian has already had something of a varied career. After graduating through state board exams, he took second place in the Hairdresser of the Year competition organised by the California Cosmetology Association. He set up and operated his own salon for several years, but sold it to go into the used-car business "where I got bad ulcers and lost my butt".
Concerned at the spreading lawlessness around him when his son was born, he moved to Boise, Idaho.
People were moving to Idaho from Washington, California and other parts of the US to escape the violence, he says. "But the year my wife and I went there, two kids were killed by two other kids with handguns. I figured that the kids moving in would bring the gang mentality and the violence with them, and by the time my son was 14 it would be as bad there as everywhere else."
So the family moved to Ireland, and after brief periods in Tralee and Cork he chose Waterford to set up business, on the basis that it was the fifth-largest Irish city and did not appear to have a private hairdressing academy already.
Now, in his "California Concepts" salon on the Waterford quays, he trains his students in cutting, colouring, tinting, perming and other styling techniques in a 1,600-hour course he says will offer them eligibility for a US licence: "You can't practise in the US unless you pass the state board exams".
He is critical of the Irish hairdressing industry and the Government for failing to regulate it and set State-wide minimum standards. The result of the loose and badly paid apprenticeship system, he says, is that "people believe this is more of a slave-labour trade than anything else."
He promises to teach his students in 10 months or a year what would take them four years to learn in another salon. "I want to have my students out of here, trained," he says, arguing that if he trains his students properly his own reputation will be enhanced by their subsequent performance.
His students seem happy to pay the £2,500 course fee, less than the rate generally charged by other establishments. Louise (18) remarks: "I know that when I leave here I can go anywhere." Aaron (19) had already done a three-month course elsewhere but felt he was being held back and not being given enough responsibility. Doug Warren says his students will have "a signature cut" when they leave his care. He believes the proposed national minimum wage for Ireland will eventually transform the hairdressing apprenticeship system.
Meanwhile, he is waiting to see if this country is ready to embrace his US-style training system "designed to enable you to develop creativity and offering you a more individual approach to hairdressing into the next century."