Cosmetologist to Microbiologist

EPISODE: 004
Where once it was the norm to hold down the same job for 30 years before retiring – now more and more people are changing jobs and careers.

Take Marie Settle as an example. Marie started out as a cosmetologist styling hair and providing skin care in the 1980s. She worked at an exclusive spa in California called the Golden Door. Guests at the “Door” now pay over $8,000 a week for room, food, exercise, beauty and massage. Working there led Marie on a career path she could have never imagined. She tells us how she went from  doing facials – to working in a lab making skin grafts for burn patients.

I’ve known Marie since beauty school and we became lifelong friends working side-by side on the rich and famous at the Golden Door.  Here’s our conversation about our time working At the Door and how she went from being a cosmetologist – to microbiologist.
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Marie Settle and her boys Ricky and Austin shortly before she moved to Oklahoma to attend college.

 

Singer songwriter John Denver enjoying a dip in the pool at the Golden Door Spa with some of the staff. 1980s

 

John Denver performed for a small gathering of staff at the Golden Door Spa in Escondido, California
John Denver getting a hair treatment by Marie at the Golden Door.
Marie & me waiting to thank John Denver for the concert as he poses for a photograph with an inidentified staff member
Photo credit Reed Settle
Marie Settle today enjoying time on her ranch.

Photos courtesy of Marie Settle.

 

Music by David Mumford under Attribution License

All Media property of Patty Lane / Do U Know Who I Am podcast

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