PARADISE, CA (Jan. 9, 2012):  The World Massage Festival is pleased to announce the National Holistic Institute in California has been named as the 2012 Massage Therapy School of the Year.

Carol Carpenter began the massage therapy institute in a house on College Avenue in Oakland and it grew steadily. The National Holistic Institute became accredited, the first massage school in California to do so.

NHI's massage therapy education and faculty were one of the most respected in the nation and the school kept growing and improving throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. In 2003, Mason Myers and Tim Veitzer purchased NHI from the school's founder and have continued the growth and tradition of excellence in massage therapy education.

In

2005, the National Holistic Institute opened new campuses in San Jose and Petaluma to enable students to attend NHI that were having difficulty commuting long distances to school. In 2006, they opened a campus in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles (Studio City) by acquiring a great long-time massage school, the Touch Therapy Institute, that had its own significant history of leadership and high quality in southern California. In 2007, a campus in San Francisco was opened.

Today, NHI is one of the most respected and largest schools of massage therapy in the world. Their history and network of relationships in the field continue to help graduates have success and help keep their fingers on the pulse of the dynamic field of massage therapy.