Jodie McCord of Seven Doors
By John Temple Ligon
Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com

Jodie McCord

The Seven Doors salon is bursting at the seams with business demands to expand but with no room to expand. The salon is on Hampton Street above the Hampton Street Vineyard restaurant. This is a problem Jodie McCord and her partner like to have. They would like to add at least two new stylists.

Born in Franklin, North Carolina, McCord spent a good part of her early childhood in Highlands. She graduated from high school in Easley, S.C. Her father worked for Lance, the cracker people based in Charlotte, and her mother was a lifetime teacher and guidance counselor.

McCord earned a degree in fashion merchandising, but her first years out of school were spent as a bartender in the Columbia Marriott. In 1985, she joined Dean Witter as a sales assistant. She moved on to the securities division at C&S Bank, where she developed a strong following of clients, but she had to leave C&S to relocate with Merrill Lynch in Charleston, when her husband Carl began medical school there.

McCord and her husband returned to Columbia for Dr. McCord's residency in family practice at Richland Memorial. She began a salon interest through cosmetics at Adrian's on the ground floor of the Cornell Arms apartment building at the corner of Sumter and Pendleton. She further developed her salon skills at King's Row in Five Points.

Following King's Row, McCord set up shop for herself in the back of Gordon Humphries Photography. Her one-chair operation was named Salon 1507 after the street address at 1507 Gervais Street. She kept the name 1507 Salon and moved her shop to the Cornell Arms in 1999. There she expanded the salon services, especially in the field of skin care.

In 2003, McCord moved Salon 1507 to the Sylvan's building on Hampton Street and changed its name to Seven Doors.

With the move and its opportunities for expansion, McCord had to hire new people.

In South Carolina, the barber certificate allows for hair cutting only. With expanded certification a master barber can do just about everything a customer might expect except artificial nails: pedicure, manicure, color, perm, cut, straightening, and straight-razor shave.

A second career track for McCord is physical fitness. She began as a fitness instructor 12 years ago at Columbia's downtown YMCA. She left the Y after five years and later shifted her instruction to yoga.

McCord teaches yoga three mornings a week at New Life Fitness on St. Andrews Road. She used to teach yoga in the evenings at Columbia Athletic Club, but she had to drop that schedule due to conflicts with running Seven Doors.

She plans to elevate her yoga teaching skills to a higher level, working her way from her current status of RYT 200 (registered yoga teacher with 200 hours of education) to RYT 500, as accredited by the Yoga Alliance.

Another McCord sideline interest is the master gardener program.

But it's Seven Doors that gets most of McCord's attention. She is particularly pleased with her presence in downtown and the future of the firm. Her number one mission at Seven Doors is customer service.