When most people walk into a barber shop, they probably don't immediately start questioning their line of work.

But when Denny Kisner went to a barber shop for the first time, he was blown away.

"This guy looked about 24 and was cutting all his buddies' hair and was making good money," the Brooklyn Park resident said. "He had a big screen TV and a pool table."

The 22-year-old was digging ditches at the time. He convinced his father, Dennis Sr., to put his college fund into tuition for barber school. Three years later, he's opened Kisner's Barber Salon in Brooklyn Park.

The...