NHI President Tim Veitzer with NCBTMB Chair and NHI Graduate Neal Delaporta

Massage and Texas!  Two of my most favorite things together!  It truly was a delight to join NHIPresident Tim Veitzer in representing National Holistic Institute at this year’s American Massage Therapy Association’s Council of Schools (AMTA-COS) Conference in San Antonio.

For three days, we discussed, debated, and dreamed about massage education.  We even ran into some old friends like Neal Delaporta (above with Tim), the new Chair of the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork (NCBTMB) and an NHI graduate.

Ruth Werner, pathology author extraordinaire, dropped by to say hello (below).

Joe Bob Smith, Ruth Werner & Tim Veitzer

And we were privileged to meet AMTA President-Elect Judy Stahl (below).

NHI President Tim Veitzer & AMTA President-Elect Judy Stahl

Of course, what would a trip to San Antonio be without yours truly in front of the Alamo!

Remember the Alamo!

iStockphoto.com

NHI President Tim Veitzer and I just returned from the American Massage Therapy Association Council of Schools (AMTA-COS) in San Antonio.  Here it was announced that roughly 44 million Americans (20% of the adult population) had a total of around 209 million massages in 2008.  The most common factor for getting a massage was stress-relief at 36% followed by medical reasons at 31%.

On the heels of these outstanding numbers, National Public Radio (NPR) reported this morning that massage is faring well in a flagging economy.  It’s part of the ”comfort consumption” that experts say always spikes during stressful times like a recession.  People are cutting out their big expenses like vacation and travel — and spending more on smaller indulgences.  Click here to read the entire NPR article.

As with most families, at NHI the holidays are a time to gather and enjoy each other’s company…

Share laughs and memories of times past…

And wish everyone a joyous, healthy, and prosperous New Year!

Three Scorpios and a Capricorn - Mason, Nancy, Jenelle and Tim.

At every quarterly meeting we celebrate all staff birthdays occurring before our next quarterly meeting (and then we often celebrate them again when they actually occur – we’re a celebrating bunch!).  In this picture, our President Mason Myers shares a birthday on November 5 with teacher Nancy Gouge, followed by admissions representative Jenelle Menashe on November 16, and squeezing in just before the quarterly deadline is our Director of Development Tim Veitzer on December 29.

Even in these shaky economic times, NHI had a lot to celebrate at the quarterly meeting as enrollment increased 22% in our 3^rd quarter over 2007!  Also, our completion and placement numbers are tracking higher than last year’s extremely good numbers.  When times get tough, it’s nice to know people still value the benefits of both massage therapy and proper career training.

While I’ve been here blogging for over a month already, it’s been a somewhat hidden, and thus lonely, blog.  Only those close to me and some internet die-hards had the link…until now.  With the launch of our new website, all that’s changed.  This blog is now a featured and integral part of our online presence.

Hopefully, you’ll take some time to explore the new NHI website.  There’s a lot of information.  Our goal is to personalize the experience to show that we’re more than “just a school.”  NHI is an extended family full of many wonderful personalities all striving together to help people have work they love.  We do believe we’re the best massage school around.  But ultimately that title is determined by the students, graduates and employers we serve.

We trust this website will help you get to know us as people and not just an institution.  While many contributors have dedicated much of the summer to this project, I’d like to especially thank Max Fancher, John Caugin and Tim Veitzer for their outstanding work.

Now, to help you get started, here are some of my favorite parts of the new website:   

Meet our faculty and staff:
http://www.nhi.edu/about/people/index.html

Students and graduates tell why they love massage:
http://www.nhi.edu/why_massage/index.html

Hear what’s great about NHI from students and graduates:
http://www.nhi.edu/massage_school/why_nhi.html

A few alumni write about their success stories:
http://www.nhi.edu/about/people/alumni/index.html

See all the support our graduates get:
http://www.nhi.edu/alumni/index.html

“Visit” our 5 California campuses:
http://www.nhi.edu/campuses/index.html

NHI in the news:
http://www.nhi.edu/news/pressroom/index.html

Of course you’re currently reading my personal favorite new page – the blog!  Website pages are too difficult and time-consuming to update frequently.  Yet, every day exciting things occur at our campuses and in the world of massage.  To keep you up-to-date on these happenings and paint a more complete picture of life at NHI (as well myself), I’ll be blogging about recent activities, massage news, and other informative tidbits.  Please let me know what you think!