At the 2010 World Massage Festival recently held at Berea College in Berea, Kentucky, two members of the Alliance for Massage Therapy Education were inducted into the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame. Among the 12 inductees at this year’s event were Rick Rosen, MA, LMBT, Executive Director of the Alliance, and Claire Marie Miller, LMBT, a Continuing Education Member of the Alliance.

Rick has been active in the massage therapy field for 32 years — as a therapist, teacher, school director, author and state board chair. He was a co-founder of the Federation of State Massage Therapy Boards in 2005, and was part of the six-member Leadership Team that launched the Alliance beginning in the Summer of 2009. In addition to his ongoing work with the Alliance, he continues in his role as Founder and Co-director of the Body Therapy Institute in Siler City, North Carolina.

Claire also has three decades of experience in the field. From a background as a radiologic technician, she got involved in the healing arts and has had a fruitful career as a massage therapist as well as a popular CE provider. She has created two unique educational modalities that she shares with students across the country: Integrative Reflexology®, a system that blends the four major reflexology approaches, as well as Nurturing the Mother®, which focuses on massage for pregnancy, childbearing and fertility issues. Claire makes her home in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

There are previous inductees of the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame who are also Alliance Members: recognized in 2008 were Ralph Stephens, a CE Provider who was just elected to the Alliance Board of Directors; school director Sandy Fritz; and Erik Dalton, CE Provider. Inducted in the 2007 class was Tom Myers, a CE Provider who was the keynote speaker for the Alliance’s inaugural Conference in Park City, Utah.

The World Massage Festival established the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame in 2006 to honor those leaders and pioneers whose work and dedication have furthered the profession of massage therapy.