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Lisa Helbig, LMT

Lisa Helbig, LMT, is the Founder, Executive Director, and Owner of the Institute for Therapeutic Massage (ITM), the school she founded in 1994. Her career began when she became a massage therapist in 1990, upon graduating from the Jacksonville School of Massage Therapy, Florida. While building her private practice, and working for Nordstrom Spa, Lisa’s great success created the vision to combine her long standing background as a corporate trainer with her love of massage therapy to develop a school that provides students with the high level of education she felt necessary to the field. Lisa has also been instrumental in the development of other massage and aesthetician schools (both before and after opening ITM), massage based curriculums, hospital based massage programs, community / charity based outreach, CEU based videos, and a book on hot stone massage, which was published by Running Press, and continues to sell 10 years later.

What started out as a love for massage and a dream has taken ITM from 1 small room in a corporate building to 6 locations, 5 hospital affiliations, 5 core programs (including a dual certification program for Massage Therapy and Personal Training, and the first COMTA Accredited Oncology Massage Program), and over 35 continuing education classes. In the past 15 years she has spearheaded her schools through the accreditation processes of both ACCSCT and COMTA. Lisa has also added several innovative programs and new locations, all the while maintaining her Title IV Financial Aid status.

In 2007, Lisa was a volunteer with National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) for Job Task Analysis and attended their meetings in both Chicago and San Antonio. In 2009, she became a subject matter expert for the exam development committee, charged with ensuring that the national licensing exam for massage therapists fully, and fairly, test a students body of knowledge before entering the profession.

In 2008, Lisa was appointed Commissioner for the Commission on Massage Therapy Accreditation (COMTA), which accredits both educational institutions and programs offering instruction in massage therapy and bodywork. The organization was formed to establish and maintain the quality and integrity of the profession and is governed by elected volunteers. COMTA was recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a specialized accrediting agency in 2002, an acknowledgement of its expertise in ensuring quality education and allowing programs to access federal student aid funds.