About Us

Administration

As our program director, Sara Owens is the primary point person for all your questions about our school and our programs. Reach out to her anytime at info@carolinamassageinstitute.com. When you do, you’ll love her welcoming energy and deep, enthusiastic care for our students. Be sure to ask Sara about her diverse background in service industries, including owning several coffee and ice cream shops, ongoing police department crime analysis work, and teaching yoga!

Theresa Warren, our director of education, became licensed as a North Carolina massage and bodywork therapist in 2009 after a career in public relations and marketing. A graduate of Body Therapy Institute, Theresa was also a member of the faculty there from 2011 to 2016. Originally from St. Louis, MO, where she graduated from Fontbonne University, Theresa has proudly called North Carolina home for the past 20 years.

While operating a private practice in Durham since 2011, she refers to herself as a “massage missionary,” providing bodywork in numerous other massage therapy environments, including Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat and Durham Bodywork. Mindfulness of proper body mechanics and dutiful attention to work/home balance allow for a long life in a beloved profession while also spending time outdoors hiking or at the beach with family.

CMI’s owners, Lies Sapp, JD, and Sage Rountree, PhD, also own Carolina Yoga Company and Hillsborough Spa and Day Retreat, where CMI’s student clinic is held. As yoga teachers and spa aficionadas, they place a premium on body awareness and self-care, and they are honored to hold the space for your learning to help others through massage.

Faculty

Kelly Bowers, LMBT, our business teacher, has been practicing massage since 2000. She has been providing basic business education to massage therapists since 2003. As the CEO of the Healing Core, she teaches basic business courses around the country. Kelly is also a professional writer and has published three books on business for the healing arts community. She writes a blog on the business of massage (Have Hands, Will Travel) and is an NCBTMB-approved continuing education provider for massage therapists.

Kelly is motivated to help massage therapists be competent business owners because she’s seen too many gifted practitioners leave the field because they can’t make the business side of the house work for them. She uses her skills from her previous profession (technical writer, aka “professional explainer”) to make business topics accessible and nonthreatening. She works at the Medical Massage Clinic of Durham.

Emily Chaffee, LMBT, is our perinatal massage instructor for the day and night class. After graduating from Body Therapy Institute in 2011, she worked in spas for many years. She eventually left to open her own private practice, where she is able to combine her love of massage therapy and passion for maternal health by working as a fertility and birth doula, childbirth educator, and perinatal massage therapist. Through her business, Carolina Birth and Wellness, she is able to be a strong advocate for maternal health and the role that massage therapy can play in optimizing health from preconception through the postpartum period.

Emily is excited to teach future massage therapists about the benefits of massage in the perinatal stage and how to help birthing individuals across North Carolina to feel empowered in their birth experience through the power of touch.

Munsie Davis, LMBT, is our ethics teacher. She has been a self-professed workshop junkie since her graduation from Hampshire College with a degree in what is now called somatics. She credits her parents’ holistic lifestyle with her interest in healthy living and the power of touch. As a holistic manual therapist, Munsie blends a variety of skills, using touch as a medium for accessing the homeostasis mechanisms in the body.

Diana DenBeste, LMBT, our mindfulness instructor, has been practicing massage since 1999 after receiving her training at Universal College of Healing Arts in Omaha, Nebraska. Before moving to North Carolina in 2017, she had been a faculty member at UCHA teaching myofascial massage, clinical anatomy, and continuing education to licensed massage therapists while maintaining a private practice specializing in chronic pain. Her background previous to massage was in the field of medicine as a Physician Assistant and psychology as a Licensed Mental Health Therapist. She currently practices massage at an acupuncture clinic in Durham.

Diana has done meditation and yoga for 20 years, finding them very helpful in her maintenance of mental, emotional, and physical vitality. The process of personal growth has been a personal and professional study for over 30 years. Her goal as an educator is to facilitate body awareness as the pathway toward skill enhancement in massage and being a high functioning human being.

Brianne Godwin, LMBT, is our Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and Kinesiology teacher. Since graduating in 2009 from Natural Touch School of Massage, she has operated a private practice in Carrboro and Mebane. She finds that when given with skill and supportive intent, massage speaks for itself as one of the primary components of a health regimen.

During her collegiate years as a varsity swimmer at Northwestern University, she received biweekly massage as a preventative measure and attributed this practice to staying injury-free all four years. Now she finds great joy and purpose in leading others to the therapeutic effects of massage. Brianne is delighted to be part of the Carolina Massage Institute, educating future massage therapists to meet the growing demand of this therapeutic profession.

Stacy Hewitt, L.Ac, LMBT, is our Eastern energetics instructor. Stacy’s journey to become an alternative healthcare provider started in 1997 when he graduated from the Carolina School of Massage Therapy and furthered his postgraduate education with advanced certifications in geriatric, orthopedic, and structural bodywork. He also pursued training in Jin Shin Do acupressure and Reiki. With his training as a massage therapist, Stacy volunteered at a Community Holistic HIV clinic. While volunteering, Stacy witnessed the healing power of Chinese medicine through the use of acupressure alone, and that sparked his interest to pursue advanced studies in Chinese medicine.

Graduating at the top of his class, Stacy received his four-year graduate degree in acupuncture at the Jung Tao School of Classical Chinese Medicine in Sugar Grove, North Carolina. While at Jung Tao he was fortunate to have studied in the lineage of one of the world’s great masters of classical Chinese medicine, Nguyen Van Nghi. Stacy currently practices acupuncture full time in addition to teaching acupuncture clinical skills at his alma mater.

Stacy’s expertise in acupuncture and acupressure combined with his enthusiasm for teaching and real-world clinical experience makes him an excellent resource for his students. Incorporating real-life experience and hands-on practice, Stacy’s classes not only provide an understanding of Chinese medicine and energy work, but more importantly provide valuable bodywork techniques that can easily be incorporated with any massage modality.

Tonya Mason, LMBT, is our teaching assistant for Anatomy, Physiology, Pathology, and Kinesiology in the evening program. She came to the field of massage therapy after years of constant “how” and “why” questions to her own chiropractor and massage therapist. One day they suggested that she look into massage as a career. After graduating from Body Therapy Institute, she worked for that same chiropractor two years while also focusing on medical massage continuing education courses, before leaving to focus on private practice.

Tonya is a self-proclaimed anatomy nerd, and enjoys working with anatomy students, with the goal of bringing them new insights into all the amazing ways that our bodies work, and all of the ways that bodywork can support wellness.

She practices myofascial, and medical massage, Neural Reset Therapy, and Reiki, often all in the same session. She loves the blend of science and art, technical and creative, physical and energetic, analytical and empathetic that help her find creative ways to help her clients.

Anthony Tomlinson, LMBT, MMP, is our Swedish Massage instructor for our day class. A native of Raleigh, he graduated from East Carolina University in 2005 with a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Elementary Education (K–6). Still feeling the desire to work in the medical field, he graduated from ECPI University in 2010. He started his private practice, Raleigh Massage & Wellness, in 2016. As an educator, Anthony understands the importance of ongoing education and continues to his training in various modalities. He is a certified medical massage therapist and undergoing certification in Thai massage.