Our Colleges have been established training institutions in Edmonton and Calgary, Alberta since 1925, and they have been privately owned and operated by the current ownership group since 1975. Frank Cairo, original shareholder of the current ownership group, owned and operated 11 hair salons, known as Cairo Hairstylists in the city of Edmonton prior to purchasing the colleges. He became aware of the educational needs of the industry through his experiences in national and international beauty industry activities. During his career, Frank Cairo traveled extensively as a student, stylist, competitor and educator throughout Europe and North America. Frank Cairo competed in international competitions against many acclaimed stylists of the time, reaching the pinnacle of competitive success with the World Supreme victory in 1970.

In 1975 Frank Cairo purchased both the Edmonton and Calgary Marvel Beauty Schools, which offered training only in Hairstyling. Being from Europe and during his competitive traveling throughout Europe, Frank observed a growing trend before many in North America. So, in 1978 he expanded the program training to include Esthetics. Then in 1987 Fashion Design was added to the program list and soon Marvel Beauty Schools became Marvel College. Marvel College expanded to Red Deer, Alberta in 1980, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan (as Marca College) in 1989, Kelowna, B.C. in 1997 and Winnipeg, Manitoba in 2006.

The organization, M.C. College Group was created to operate the 13 programs (including Hairstyling, Esthetics and Fashion Design) at the six locations across Western Canada with a separate corporate head office located in Edmonton, Alberta.

Frank Cairo is no longer the only “Cairo” shareholder. Long run as a family business, M.C. College Group now includes sons, Joe and Dino Cairo as shareholders. Both had been involved in the operations of the colleges since they were 10 and now nearly 30 years later with the knowledge of the complete scope of operations as well as their own college and university degrees behind them, are active owners within the operations.

Today M.C. College Group has over 100 full and part-time employees. The educational faculty at each location is made up of experienced industry professionals. M.C. College Group inspires them to continue their professional development and provides instructional training to insure they are the best trained faculty in their respective programs.
The head office staff includes a Director of Operations, Director of Education and Controller with more than 40 years combined experience in the organization. Full time curriculum specialists in all three programs insure MC College delivers the most comprehensive program possible. An Artistic Director, with over 30 years experience as a platform artist and a team of internationally recognized technical advisors in both hairstyling and esthetics, consistently update the skills of the instructional faculty.

M.C. College Group training centres total over 79,000 sq. ft. of instructional space in six major centres across Western Canada. M.C. College Group trains over 500 students annually in Hairstyling, Esthetics and Fashion Design and places over 95% of these students in training related positions.

An ardent supporter of many community minded and socially conscience charities, M.C. College Group has donated well over 3 million dollars in scholarships and charitable donations in the form of services, products and dollars over the past 15 years.