Jeanne Braa: Taking on a New Role Promoting Health in the Industry

When her mentor Paul Mitchell died of pancreatic cancer in 1989, Jeanne Braa Foster kept busy. She had performed on platform alongside him for years and, beloved and respected professionally, later became artistic director of John Paul Mitchell Systems.

“My first cancer experience was with Paul, and it was a total heartache,” Jeanne remembers. “It was hard for me to continue to do shows while Paul was in the hospital, and I would work with any partner who was around. Then I met Robert Cromeans, who had a natural way about him that brought me joy. After Paul’s death I worked with Robert for about 10 years, and I put cancer out of my mind.”

When she turned 50 and determined that she had reached all of her goals, Jeanne changed direction and left the industry. “It was a Christian awakening that happened to me,” she explains. She became friends with, and then married, retired surgeon Dean Foster and joined him in the missionary work he was doing. After keeping cancer off her radar for a long time, Jeanne Braa Foster met up with the disease again when, three years into her marriage, her husband was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

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