Fantastic Sams Hair Salons on Friday announced the purchase of its 13 franchise salons on the Central Coast, with eight in Santa Barbara County, marking a new growth strategy for the brand, company officials said.

Company president and CEO Scott Colabuono said he plans to continue developing corporate locations in underdeveloped markets as a way to strengthen the brand’s footprint in markets across the country.

Fantastic Sams Regional Director Jennifer Metzger said Monday the move means the company has hired 20 additional employees on the Central Coast and plans to double the number of its salons in Santa Barbara County during the next several years.

“For some time, Fantastic Sams has considered owning and operating our own salons,” Colabuono said in a statement. ”In fact, when I first joined the company nearly five years ago, owning salons was a key initiative I wanted to tackle. We have now made the decision to make this a strong part of our national growth strategy and a method to strengthen our system overall.”

Company officials didn’t release the cost to purchase the 13 salons, which include those in Goleta, Santa Barbara, Carpinteria, Orcutt and Santa Maria, as well as those in San Luis Obispo, Atascadero, Nipomo and Grover Beach.

Metzger will lead an effort to remodel and renovate the 13 Central Coast salons. In addition to rebuilding the brand awareness and footprint of Fantastic Sams in the Santa Barbara region of California, she will participate in overseeing operations and training.

“These salons will allow us to have firsthand operational metrics to hone the operating model for the Fantastic Sams system, and most importantly we open another career element for our employees so inclined to move into salon operations,” Colabuono said. “We see this as a new direction for the Fantastic Sams brand moving forward and a great opportunity for new and existing franchisees in the system.”

The new salons will act as a testing ground for marketing tactics, product launches and testing the success of specific services, company officials said. GuestVision, beauty industry software, will be installed as a state-of-the-art point-of-sale system to further track real-time sales and enhance business planning.

Fantastic Sams Hair Salons, started in Memphis in 1974, is a nearly 1,300-unit franchise that opened 54 locations in 2009. The company’s corporate headquarters is in Massachusetts.

— Noozhawk business writer Ray Estrada can be reached at restrada@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk or @NoozhawkNews.