Meet Our Founder
Meet Holly! Holly loves learning, teaching, treating and travel. Her interest in anatomy began in 1997, when Hollys’ travels took her to Northern Guatemala where she worked in human rights with a group of Argentinean forensic anthropologists. This began Holly’s obsession with anatomy and how it can be manually manipulated.
Returning home, she enrolled at Brenneke School of Massage. After graduating, she was recruited to be a teaching assistant. Two years later, Holly was a core instructor, teaching Brenneke’s extended 1000hr program, teaching her assistants to teach and running an active private practice specializing in geriatric massage.
Between sessions, Holly took month long budget trips to Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Costa Rica.
She also took charge of Brenneke's field experience program, expanding it from 2 to 6 sites, including Harbor View, Swedish Hospital and The Bailey Bushay House; teaching advanced students how to work with medical teams and to handle a wide variety of medical and psychological situations. Her passion for medical massage touched those around her and the program received the PBS Good Works Award for the Pacific Northwest.
Brenneke provided ongoing opportunities for continuing education and Holly took advantage of all of them. Assisting and taking several classes a year by visiting therapists. She also returned to college and received her degree in teaching from Antioch University.
After working at Brenneke School of Massage for 6 years, Holly and her husband sold all their belongings to travel the world for the next five years. The first year was dedicated to rebuilding a 1967 Enfield motorbike and riding through much
of rural India, experiencing the plains in the Monsoon, traversing the highest motorable pass in the world, meeting life-long friends and having amazing and wild adventures.
Continuing their travels in South America, Holly joined a nun-run nursing home in Bolivia and taught pain-reduction strategies for situations where drugs are unavailable, transforming the way they worked with their residents. When not working with the nursing home, Holly hiked the old Incan trails, including a 20,000 foot pass, visited Machu Picchu and spent extensive time in Ecuador and Columbia.
For the last stint of the journey, they bought an old VW bus in Chile, repaired it and drove to the tip of Argentina and back to Buenos Aires before traveling to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. Running short on money, they went to the British Virgin Islands, working odd jobs and learning how to sail.
In 2012 they returned to Seattle and Holly taught at various schools, eventually settling at Renton Tech where she revamped their massage program, became a tenured teacher, and started Northwest Treatment Massage. During this time she continued her education at Bastyr University, studying Craniosacral Therapy and Visceral Manipulation. She also completed her Reiki Master training.
After leaving Renton Tech, she was excited to start teaching at a more advanced level and design a massage clinic she would love to work at. Holly opened Stillwater Massage, a teaching clinic that provides outstanding care, ongoing education, and excellent pay. Although you will not see her on the online booking, Holly maintains a busy treatment schedule through referral. Her current interest is treating entire families, from infants to the great grandparents.
After many successful years treating our community, the demand for work from Holly and her team just keeps growing. We’re currently hiring new therapists and taking new clients. Feel free to book a massage or apply today! We look forward to meeting you.
