Feature
This Family Business Should Be Your First Source
For Adhesives
W
hen we think about non-surgical hair re-
placement, the first thing we often think
of is the actual hair piece, not what’s go-
ing on under it. However, one of most
important aspects of whether or not a hairpiece will
work is hidden out of view, which is how it’s meant to
be. The proper adhesive will make or break your hair-
piece. Which is why this month, we’re taking the time
to get to know the story of the Walker Tape company,
one of the oldest, and continually best companies in the
hair adhesive business. We spoke with Vice President
Diane Bonham, daughter of founder Brent Bonham, to
learn more about the company’s unique story.
How did Brent Bonham go from deciding
to work with machinery to building one
of the most well renowned hair adhesive
companies in the industry?
Bonham spent much of his early career at Life Like
Hairpieces, a popular hairpiece producer. His brother
went bald very early and created the concept for the
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company, which was open from the 60’s to 80’s. Bon-
ham retired from the business when he was about 50,
but then began looking for other opportunities. He had
always been an inventor and machinist and realized
that there weren’t clean tape products available after
his years in the industry. At the time, there was little
standardization and there wasn’t a clean product avail-
able. Diane explained, “Back when my dad would get
products for adhesives they would just throw a bunch
of tape in a box. My dad thought, ‘this needs to be
packaged separately, it needs to be covered.’” Bonham
began designing machines and after getting his design
down he ran into a new problem, how to acquire the
right tape.
“In 1985 the tape he needed was a 3M clear standard
medical tape,” Diane explained, “He kept calling and
calling 3M, but they didn’t want to talk to him, didn’t
want to meet with him, but finally he got the represen-
tative to come in to see the machine he had created. He
was so impressed he told my dad, ‘I want you to know I
had no intention of selling to you, but your passion, and
your machine, and your knowledge of this industry. I’m
going to take a risk with you.’ He sold my dad his first
jumbo log of tape and then my dad converted it down.”
Their process speed up, streamlined, and advanced the