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Rocky Mountain Massage Therapist

Interview with Jo-Ann Rutherford, RN, RMT

Interviewer: Doug Alexander

How To Best Enjoy This Interview!

Jo-Ann Rutherford lives in Canmore and works in Banff at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel in the Willow Stream Spa. It has been a long and interesting hike through the years that brought Jo-Ann to her current situation. She agreed to share a little bit of her story with Massage Therapy Practice.com readers (and listeners!) in this interview.

 You can either listen to the audio version of her interview by clicking here or reading the interview below.

Many people like to play the audio while they read the text and look at the pictures and various hyperlinks.

Give the file some time to download (a minute or two) - In the meantime you might as well start reading!

 MTP.com: How long have you been practicing massage therapy, Jo-Ann?

J-A: 23 years, since 1985.

MTP.com: You’ve been at this a good, long stretch! Where did you initially train?

J-A: The Canadian College of Massage and Hydrotherapy when it was in Sutton, Ontario.

MTP: You trained in Toronto, and where do you currently work?

J-A: The Willow Stream Spa at the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel.  

MTP: What do you do there?

J-A: I co-supervise our massage therapy team as well as perform massage and body treatments in the spa.

MTP: How did you get all the way from Toronto out to Banff?

J-A: I’ll make a short story just a little bit long, so there is some background. For a long time I have had an affinity for the mountains. I was born in Manitoba. I lived in Calgary for a portion of my nursing career in the late 70’s. When I was living in Ontario and had my massage therapy practice my husband and I vacationed out west. We went out to the mountains and loved it.

(Check out the cool Google map above that shows Calgary, Canmore and Banff as well as the mountains! Editor)

Eventually, it was twice a year for almost 10 years that we made our way out here to ski and hike. It started to feel a lot like home. So we made the break. I sold my massage therapy practice in Toronto and we moved to Canmore, Alberta.

(Click on any of the images above for a closer look at Jo-Ann enjoying friends and the mountains!)

MTP: You’ve been at this quite a stretch! What still intrigues, satisfies or stimulates you as a massage therapist?

J-A: I would have to say working so closely with people and with a varied number and type of clients. And using a variety of skills that I have collected through a lot of actual experience as well as courses I’ve take to really customize a treatment for a client.

MTP: What are the most exciting developments you see for the profession ahead?

J-A: I would have to say the research that is being done. It’s quite exciting to see how individuals are really taking hold of the need to validate what we do and show the hard science that what we do really does make a difference.

The second thing would be the information technology that is available to us to bring knowledge and that research closer to us as therapists and quicker.

MTP: Do you see any problems ahead for the profession?

J-A: In Canada, potentially the problems could be the diversity of work settings. In that there are so many different environments that therapists now can work. Ensuring the credibility and the continuing search for knowledge and updated information about our profession could be a problem for us.

 MTP: You supervise therapists at the spa. Could you describe what a typical day would be like for one of these therapists?

J-A: Our spa has a four day week. It is a 32 hour (potential) work week, 45 minute lunch with 15 minutes between services which sounds kind of rigid, which during busy times it can be! But there is an opportunity for therapists if they are not booked to take that time for themselves; to recoup; to just ensure that the area they are working in is cleaned and stocked.

What it boils down to is an 8 hour day, 6 hours of potential treatments and a combination of both massage and body treatments. We train our therapists to do wraps and scrubs and those other types of spa-like treatments.  

MTP: What types of expectations does the spa have for the therapists? You mentioned that if they don’t have a treatment, they can do some self care, make sure their area is fine. Do you have other types of requirements of your staff?

J-A: Cleaning the facility. Being a world-class spa facility it's so important that the spa is in good working order and clean. It is more of a duty than an expectation.

MTP: What are the salary expectations, benefits and other things that people should know about when they consider working at your spa?

J-A: Our full-time employees (a majority of our employees are full-time) are employees of Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. It is part of a big company and with that it's the typical health benefits. Taxes are taken off the pay (CPP, EI, disability). There is comprehensive insurance already included because of being an employee in a facility. And, then the therapist is responsible for their own professional liability insurance.

On average our therapists, when they are treating, make approximately $ 45 an hour.

Being a therapist in our spa, another benefit that we have for them is a meal plan which is $ 4 worth of food a day which is a taxable benefit. As well access to the gym, and the aquatic center. The actual spa facility itself is available to the therapist based on availability of course, once every two weeks.

Overall it is a good package for someone looking for something very stable and non-stress in terms of not actually being a contract worker, but being a full employee.

MTP: If a massage therapist wanted to work at your spa what should they do?

J-A: The application process is through Fairmont Hotels and Resorts. There is as part of the web site a section on job opportunities. My suggestion to any therapist interested in a spa environment, particularly new grads, is to get some experience first. The expectation of clients in a spa like ours is very high. We do charge our guests quite a substantial amount for the services and for using the spa. We recommend that people get that hand on experience first.

However, the process is to apply through the Fairmont website

(click here or image below)

 MTP: Do you make some distinctions between “relaxation massage” and massage that is directed towards “therapeutic” or musculoskeletal issues?

J-A: We do and it is certainly challenging for an organization that has more than one spa. We are a nine spa organization under the Fairmont brand and the standard that we have at our spa is a 2,200 massage therapy requirement.

Our guests see a similar menu at all of our properties. So the way it is set up a massage experience is either relaxation, stress-relief, sports which is more like a therapeutic massage in the way it reads.

We also have a golf performance and ski performance massage which is much more technical and actually utilize things like pnf and mobilizations. So we do have those distinctions, but the goal is to be as individual and customized as possible with the guests. So we do any kind of assessment that ensures that there is no harm or what we are proposing to do for the massage isn’t contraindicated.

MTP: Do you have any parting words of advice for new massage therapists?

J-A: As a massage therapist, the most important thing to me has been continuing education, getting experience and experiencing what the profession has to offer by having various massage modalities from a number of different practitioners.

And basically, work smart, not hard!

MTP: Have you service marked that? Is there anything else you want to add at this point?

J-A: It has certainly been a very interesting experience working in the mountains. What the mountains have to offer in terms of activities and certainly for our therapists at the spa is a huge draw. It is one of Canada’s most beautiful playgrounds and I certainly love living here and working here.

MTP: Thanks for taking time out from your work and play and have a great day!

J-A: You too!