LAWRENCE — Longtime barber Ed Wheat was 12 years old when he first picked up a pair of hair clippers and gave his two little brothers a trim.
When his dad got home, he was surprisingly impressed with the results.
“He asked them, ‘How’d you get a haircut?’ and they said ‘Ed cut it.’ Even my first trim wasn’t too bad,” said Wheat, 43, who lives in McCordsville with his wife and three young sons.
The Army veteran has put his barbering skills to good use, landing a contract to be the onsite barber for Ft. Benjamin Harrison — better known as “Fort Ben” — in nearby Lawrence.
Wheat opened the barbershop right next door to the military base’s commissary just off 59th Street in 2022, starting a five-year contract to offer affordable haircuts and barber services to military men and women.
Although Fort Bent is no longer an active military base, it does draw roughly 10,000 soldiers each year through its Military Entrance Processing Station and spaces devoted to the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Indiana National Guard and U.S. Army, Marine and Navy reserves.
Between 50 and 60 military members and veterans stop by Wheat’s barbershop each week.
Wheat joined the Army in 2001, serving in the reserves through 2009.
He was trained as a heating and cooling specialist, which became an essential job when he was deployed to Iraq at wartime, 2006-2007.
“It’s very hot and dusty there. The average temperature in the summer is 100 degrees,” recalled Wheat, who was assigned his own trailer as a show of appreciation for keeping his fellow troops cool.
“The fact I got to do that in live action in Iraq during wartime made me feel good about how I was serving,” he said.
He also served in Kuwait and Qatar.
When his active duty was done, he pursued a bachelor’s degree in cyber technology.
Having minored in chemistry, he landed a job with a local pharmaceutical firm, a job he held for eight years until the company sent a large number of jobs overseas, including his own.
Around that time his third child was born, so Wheat stayed home for a year as he contemplated his next move.
He eventually came into a job delivering barbershop supplies, which led him to barber college and pursuing even more training to become a licensed master barber.
Wheat had long dreamed of owning his own business, so in 2020 he reached out to the consultants at SCORE, a volunteer-based mentoring service which has helped millions of entrepreneurs start or grow a business.
With more than 70 members throughout the Indianapolis area, SCORE Indianapolis provides nearly 3,000 mentoring services each year through one-on-one counseling and small business workshops.
Wheat said the organization’s help has proven invaluable in his quest to start his own business — Focus Integrated Business Experts, or FIBE — through which he delivers supplies to local barbers and oversees the barber shop at Fort Ben.
“They kept me focused on building my business. It allowed me to be successful by keeping my foot on the pedal, helping to steer me in the right direction,” he said of his SCORE mentors.
Wheat has enjoyed cutting hair ever since he gave his brothers a trim when he was 12 years old.
He bought his own pair of clippers when he was about 15.
When he graduated from Northwest High School in Indianapolis, “my grandfather bought me the best clippers you can find,” Wheat recalled.
He cut friends’ and family members’ hair intermittently over the years, which eventually led to his current job working behind a barber’s chair full-time.
He’s now exploring opening his own barbershop somewhere near Broad Ripple, with his SCORE mentors’ help.
Yet there’s something very special about working with active military members and veterans at Fort Ben, he said.
“I like being able to help my battle buddies out,” said Wheat, who remembers all too well what it was like to be in a rush to get a haircut while in the military.
“If you got in trouble because your hair wasn’t short enough, you’d have to hurry up and get it cut,” he said.
Wheat especially enjoys serving the older set of veterans, most of whom have great stories to tell.
“I have one good customer who was a colonel back in Vietnam and was part of the first Black special forces alongside Colin Powell,” he said.
Wheat says he enjoys the camaraderie he shares with his fellow veterans and military members, and they appreciate the fact he knows the exact military standards for hair.
“It’s a lot of high and tights,” said Wheat, referring to the classic military hairstyle, characterized by the back and sides of the head being shaved to the skin with slightly longer hair on top.
The military requires that hair stays off the ears, and is no longer than three inches long on top, which means some clients stop by Wheat’s shop for a trim every two weeks or so.
“Sometimes they update me on what’s happening in the military, but we mostly talk about sports,” said Wheat, who loves returning each night to his home in Hancock County, which he shares with his wife, Tiffany, and their three sons, ages 5, 11 and 12.
“McCordsville is a nice, safe place to raise a family,” he said, adding that his oldest son has already started asking when he gets his own pair of clippers.
