We look forward to watching our new campus grow and become connected with the rest of the National Holistic Institute community!  We also recently began our student massage clinic and had a wonderful first weekend - John Lambert and Lucas Nevarez have done a great job working with our wonderful students!  If you are in the Sacramento area and you need some more incentive to get down to the clinic, you can get $5 off your first massage just by liking our Sacramento Facebook Page!

Photo by Manny Crisostomo of the Sacramento Bee

As a positive energy fills the air surrounding NHI’s brand new campus in Sacramento, CA, the Sacramento Bee and the Press Democrat both put the massage therapy profession into a new perspective.  The Bee article covers the growing demand for massage in the state’s capitol even through a rough economy.  Steve Pierce of Massage Envy Spas told the Bee,

“I’ll tell you how things are. If  NHI Sacramento had 20 or 30 massage therapists ready to graduate, I’d hire them all right now,”

Check out the article here:  

The Press Democrat featured a similar story:

“The industry’s growth has been prompted by several factors, she said, including a greater acceptance by medical professionals of the value of massage therapy and new state certification standards.”

Check out the article here:  

Despite a growing industry, we feel it is more important than ever for every massage therapist to be interconnected and get the best education possible.  With a focus on community and personal development, NHI staff and mentors strive to give each individual student the tools that they need to succeed.

Left to Right: Beth McNeill, Linda Rikli, Tiahna Skye, Jen Jhanda, Raquel Rodriguez and Ron Peat. AMTA Schools Summit NHI Panel

Several audience members expressed difficulties trying to place graduates while dealing with often slow state licensing processes.  NHI representative and California Massage Therapy Council (CAMTC) Board Member Joe Bob Smith explained how this wasn’t a problem in California since programs like NHI could help students apply for certification to work while they were still in school.  Michael McGillicuddy from Florida and Sally Hacking from the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards (FSMTB) shared their perspectives on the matter and encouraged everyone in attendance to get involved in their local legislation.  It was agreed that many lawmakers still need to be educated about the massage profession and the role of schools.

Some attendees raised the issue of training students with English as a second language.  Cynthia Ribeiro, NHI’s Advanced Curriculum Coordinator and AMTA President-Elect, shared her story of coming to America from Brazil and succeeding as a massage therapist.  Most all schools, like NHI, welcomed the challenge of training a diverse student body.

The purpose of the panel was to encourage all schools to share their best practices as a way of raising the bar for massage therapy education as a whole.  In addition to some of NHI’s wisdom, participants also got to experience a couple of NHI rituals including the chi pat and the infamous “Whoosh!”.  Ron Peat closed the two-hour session with words of wisdom that he often shares with students: 1) the only failure is the failure to participate, and 2) if you can’t be on time, be early.

This annual summit, held this year in San Francisco, gathers massage school owners, directors, and personnel from across the country to discuss their challenges and successes as well as the future of massage therapy education.

Petaluma held the first National Holistic Institute classes outside of the “Mother Ship” (in Emeryville), on July 27^th 2005.  The celebration activities included plenty of reminiscing, smiles, and expressed gratitude to the many members of the NHI community staff who contributed to our campus’ success. 

The campus buzzed with excitement and sentiment as we celebrated with stories of the pioneering days of start up and the wonderful expansion and growth of our campus. The Petaluma Campus halls were decorated with photos from the faces of over 240 grads that have gone through the program during the last 5 years! 

Included special guests were NHI President Tim Veitzer and Executive Vice President Mason Myers, Vice President of Education Linda Rikli, Faculty Training Coordinator and AMTA Teacher of the Year Melissa Wheeler, Curriculum Director Jim O’Hara, Dean of Students Ron Peat, former Petaluma Campus teacher/mentor and current San Francisco Campus Manager Tiahna Skye, former associate teacher Jennifer Willoughby and the entire Petaluma staff including Campus Manager Klayna Snider; Placement Manager Allison McLeod Budlong; teacher/mentors Lucas Nevarez, Mark Nielsen, Breanna Gieseker; teacher Shoshana Frieden and Sr. TA Jacqui Peterson . In addition, special honorary mentions were given to longtime TA Jeanne Murphy for her dedication to the NHI staff and students as our teacher’s assistant for over 3 years!

Each of our guests was treated to an hour of luxurious massage by our wonderful students and grads. Those who participated as part of our special massage team for the day were; Jean Murphy, Kathy Centeno, Marissa Mowinckel, Stacy DesJardins, Aidan Sheehan, Gio Sevieri, Tracy Mancheno, Tara Ward, Kelli Ashcraft, Akilah Tutt, Cheri Keene and Kenol Felix. Our guests were thrilled with the special treat of receiving massage as an expression of gratitude from our gifted and highly skilled students and grads!  Several NHI staff members have remarked that although the massages were remarkable, one of the highlights of the afternoon was hearing the individual success stories of each student and graduate that attended.

In addition, Allison and Breanna prepared with great love and care, the most delicious, homemade spring rolls and lettuce wraps, fruit assortment and cake.

It was a sweet celebration all the way around and staff and students were left with a great sense of pride and appreciation for our Sweet Petaluma NHI Campus that lives in the heart of the wine and spa industry countryside.

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.

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!