The instructors in this school are an incredible group. Although very different in background and style, they all have this in common: an uncompromising commitment to the quality of their students’ growth and skill development, and a great enthusiasm for their own life-long learning. All have years of experience in successful practices. They are also funny, smart, and compassionate.
Janine Borger
INSTRUCTOR AND CAMPUS COORDINATOR, EDMONTON
Janine has been with Vicars School from the first year and applies her professional experience as a teacher and therapist to enrich the classes she teaches. Janine has taught in both Calgary and Edmonton and is also the dedicated Edmonton instructor for Anatomy & Physiology and Pathology, our two core science courses. She is a valued advisor and liaison between Edmonton and Calgary and a tireless advocate for both students and instructors to ensure they can be both successful and effective.
Janine owned a busy clinic in Lacombe for many years. Her experience working in a smaller centre makes her an invaluable resource for our many rural students.
She has been active in the MTAA for more than 25 years.
Christina Capone
INSTRUCTOR, CALGARY
Christina always knew she wanted a career that would allow her to help others. That’s why massage therapy—and later, teaching—was the perfect fit.
Christina practices massage in a multi-disciplinary clinic in Calgary. Though this clinic, she has a team of other professionals to whom she can refer her clients, and vice versa.
Christina graduated from Vicars in 2015, and once she had established her own career, she returned as a member of the faculty. She is committed to helping future massage therapists learn the theory and skills they need. Christina says it’s great to see the wheels turning in the students’ heads and feel their passion for learning, which she says further ignites her own joy.
Jaime DeGroot
CLINIC COORDINATOR, EDMONTON
Jaime is the Edmonton Clinic Coordinator. Her job is to ensure that Vicars students have a rewarding experience in student clinics, learning new skills and developing as therapists over the 16 months they work with the public.
As a Vicars instructor since 2014, she is known on campus for her enthusiasm and humour in the classroom. She brings that same energy and commitment to student clinics. Nothing is more satisfying, in her opinion, than seeing a student evolve from being a nervous beginner into a capable therapist who understands real-world clinical practice scenarios.
Jaime has a music background, and in her own practice she has a special interest in treating the work-related injuries of musicians and other performers.
Lauren Gahn
INSTRUCTOR, EDMONTON
Lauren came to Vicars as a mature student in and graduated in 2017. She always knew that she wanted to be an expert in helping and healing people, but it took a while to realize that massage therapy was the right career for her.
As a student and as an instructor, Lauren loves the emphasis that the Vicars program places on assessment, as she sees it as the key to finding root causes of conditions and issues. She believes that massage is not just about providing treatments, but about all-encompassing care.
She was excited to join the Vicars faculty to be a champion for student success and to help her students find their own paths within the profession.
Tamara Goodrich
INSTRUCTOR, EDMONTON
Tamara discovered the power of massage therapy after seeking treatment for persistent back pain. The effects were so transformative that she decided to change careers and become an RMT.
She quickly built a rewarding practice working in a multi-disciplinary clinic. She says her massage career gives her so much: the ability to make a difference in the quality of life of her clients; the freedom to schedule her workdays around her life; and a deeper sense of purpose through connecting with like-minded people.
Tamara loves helping to prepare her students for their own careers. “I know some of the rewards that await them down the road,” she says. “That motivates me to continue growing as a therapist and an instructor.”
Gabriela Husch
INSTRUCTOR, EDMONTON
When Gabriela was in high school in Austria, she knew the career she wanted: massage therapy. But her parents knew better, so she went to university for an education degree. Years later in Canada, she changed careers. She graduated from Vicars in 2014 and began a successful and satisfying massage therapy practice. Gabriela most enjoys working with clients with specific issues requiring careful assessments and an effective treatment plan that can include guided home care and referrals to other health professionals. Even as she was training as an RMT, though, she dreamed of being able to combine her two careers: teaching and massage therapy. She was delighted to be able to rejoin the Vicars family as an instructor in 2019.
Dan Hvingelby
INSTRUCTOR, CALGARY
Even during his busiest years as an RMT focused on persistent pain, Dan has always made time for teaching. By doing both, he has positively affected more peoples’ lives than through client care alone.
Dan instructed at Foothills College before joining Vicars in 2008. He wasn’t sure about the move from a busy established college to joining Vicars, which was still growing and had a very different focus. At his first faculty meeting, he recalls, a particular change was suggested. The staff and faculty liked the idea, but after a manager asked whether it was really in the best interest of the students, and the answer was no, the plan was defeated. That’s when he decided he was in the right place, he says.
Lourdes Nunes-Sammer
INSTRUCTOR, EDMONTON
Lourdes’ decision to become a massage therapist was driven by her lifelong interest in health. She wanted a hands-on understanding of the body, and to know how to help people keep themselves healthy, well, active, and agile.
Lourdes earned her diploma from Vicars School in 2009. Like so many Vicars students, she lived several hours away from the city at the time and travelled to Edmonton each month to complete her in-person classes. She owned and operated a busy practice in Jasper before returning to Vicars as an instructor and acting director of admissions. Now back in the classroom, Lourdes also draws from her experiences of over two decades working in fitness training and recreation programming.
Corliss Robertson
INSTRUCTOR, CALGARY
In the classroom, Corliss believes in creating a comfortable, low-stress environment to cultivate learning for her students.
Corliss has based her entire professional career on helping others and has extensive hands-on experience with injury and disease processes. Before deciding to become a massage therapist, she held various positions in healthcare and was an Emergency Medical Technician. During this time, she learned valuable critical thinking and patient assessment skills.
Corliss loves the flexibility and variety that a career in massage therapy allows. She is particularly interested in the role that massage can play in rehabilitation after injury and is dedicated to helping her clients back to their old lives and ultimately to pain-free, healthy, active lifestyles.
Cadi Smit
INSTRUCTOR, CALGARY
Cadi knew that she wanted to help people and work with them one-on-one. From her years as an active athlete and her experience in recovering from different injuries as a soccer player, she knew and valued the benefits that massage therapy could provide.
When she decided that massage therapy was the career for her, she chose Vicars. After graduating in 2017, she began working at a multidisciplinary clinic and has remained there since, honing her skills.
Cadi brings to the classroom a deep appreciation for the value of the therapeutic relationship. This relationship is key to a therapist getting to the root of a client’s chronic pain and other issues and developing treatment plans that will have a long-term impact.
Mark Smith
INSTRUCTOR AND CORE SCIENCES COORDINATOR, CALGARY
Like many of our instructors and staff, Mark was drawn to massage therapy because of his own active lifestyle. A lifelong athlete who loves to hike, run, and play cricket, Mark also played football (soccer) semi-professionally.
Before becoming a massage therapist, Mark had a successful career as an environmental scientist in his native Australia, including seven years teaching in Australian universities. He took his massage training at the Whistler School of Massage and at Vicars. Mark’s practice in Canmore/Kananaskis specializes in therapeutic and sports massage. In addition to teaching in Calgary, Mark is also the dedicated Calgary instructor for Anatomy & Physiology and Pathology, the two core science courses that are delivered to Vicars students online.
Tonia Vipler
INSTRUCTOR, CALGARY
When Tonia is not in our Calgary classroom or clinics, she is often seeing athletes in her mobile massage practice. Tonia earned a degree in kinesiology from UBC before becoming an RMT, so it is a familiar world to her.
Unlike some of her colleagues in sports massage, she is most interested in working with “everyday” athletes, not professionals—clients who need to stay fit and mobile to do triathlons or play hockey.
In her mobile practice, Tonia often treats the whole family. She likes working with children, educating them about massage and movement. For these young clients, a massage therapist’s job includes teaching them how their bodies move and how to prevent injuries.
Kerri Wagensveld
INSTRUCTOR, EDMONTON
Like many of the students she teaches, Kerri came to massage therapy later in life after dreaming of it for many years.
While a student at Vicars, she balanced her schoolwork with the responsibilities that come with being a working mother. Since graduating, she has applied that same work ethic to building a successful practice with a specialization in sport massage.
Kerri treats athletes and the public at the Active Life Centre in St Albert and is a member of the Canadian Sport Massage Therapists Association.
