Yet that’s not because he comes from a family line before him, even though owner Rick Hiltonen himself has a long history in hair.

Hiltonen began at age 16 cutting his uncle’s hair and got better and better at it. Soon friends were offering to pay him to cut their hair, so he decided to make it a career.

His plan was always to be a barber rather than a stylist working in a salon, he said. Men’s styles are easier to cut, he said, jokingly adding that the company in a barber shop is much better.

In 1999, Hiltonen attended the cosmetology program at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, where he spent a year and a half and received 1,500 hours of training.

RICK'S HAIRCUTS on Carpenter Avenue in Iron Mountain has been a barbershop since 1938. (Jim Paul/Daily News photo)

After that, Hiltonen served a year-long internship at Chris’ Hair Studio in Iron River. Hiltonen is from Amasa, also in Iron County, and attended Forest Park High School in Crystal Falls.

After completing his internship, Hiltonen opened his first shop in Stambaugh, where he would be for roughly a decade. But he decided he needed to move his business to a place where he could get more traffic coming in, so looked for opportunities in Iron Mountain.

His current location on Carpenter Avenue in Iron Mountain has been a barber shop continuously since 1938. He purchased the business from Jim and Tom Christensen, a father and son team.

Hiltonen said he is able to give his customers any haircut they want, from trims, crew cuts, fades and

even mullets. Even if he hasn’t done a particular style, if a customer brings in a photo, he likely can figure it out, he said — even if it’s a really unusual idea.

Hiltonen likes to stay on top of current styles and how to cut them by watching YouTube videos, he said, adding that even though styles change, not so much changes in the business and he is able to adapt and figure out how to do new haircuts.

Much like the portrayal on television and the movies, Rick’s Haircuts is often the place where customers linger for conversations. Unlike television and the movies, Hiltonen does not offer a shave with a haircut — that requires a special license he does not have and not many customers have asked about getting a shave anyway.

With only a few traditional barber shops in the area, his clientele come from a number of communities, all walks of life and all ages, from as young as 2 all the way up to 95 years old. Hiltonen says he even has a few women customers who like their hair cut shorter.

Other than the rare difficult customer, the part of owning a barber shop that Hiltonen enjoys the most is the people he gets to meet. He thinks his personality helps set him apart in the business — customers come for the conversation as much as to get a haircut, he said.

Hiltonen tells anyone aspiring to go into the business they have to enjoy talking to people as much as they like cutting hair.

“I have met a lot of new and great people and made a lot of friends doing this in the last 25 years,” Hiltonen said.

Rick’s Haircuts is open noon to 5:30 p.m. Mondays and 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Friday at 406 Carpenter Ave. in Iron Mountain. A basic haircut costs $16 and Rick’s Haircuts takes walk-ins only — “come get in line,” Hiltonen said.