Micheal (Mike) Hinkle was born on Shaw AFB on Sept.20, 1958. He was a year-round athlete that always aspired to play pro baseball. He protected people and almost always got involved when he saw bullies pick on smaller ones. No one understood why he was always fighting. But most of all he was a dreamer. He was often scolded for day dreaming, or so they thought. He was always trying to help people and solve their problems.

Early he became a journalist, cosmetologist, barber and Wal~Mart Dept. Manager. He was the one that came up with the idea to move the cigarettes to one controlled location. And it was there, he thought of the idea to travel and write about B&B’s and campgrounds. The idea became a five year vacation, from Alaska to the Dominican Republic, called Cruising America! Mike’s travels are still up in many locations on the internet. Mike received many massages as he travelled. And sometimes he would massage.

The travelling stopped, when Mike took advice from a Texas therapist to go to massage school in Florida. He opened his first center in 2004, two weeks, before he graduated from school. He hired licensed therapists to open the business. Mike built his business from scratch and by Valentine’s Day of 2006 had 52 therapists that were on call at his second center.

He was the 2006 AMTA Florida Chapter Newsletter, “The Journal,” Editor. He started the AMTA Pensacola Unit and was the first Chairman. He was the webmaster, historian and a regional director for the Florida AMTA Chapter in 2006. And he was honored with the AMTA Florida Chapter President’s Award in 2007.

In 2006, AMTA asked members to come up with some ideas to help bring attention about massage to the general public, for Massage Therapy Awareness Week. Mike studied the profession and realized we were not recognizing our own, we were charging some, different prices to get the same education and he decided to create some options.

To recognize our own, he created, “The Massage Therapy Hall of Fame”. Every year six men and six women are added to the Massage Therapy Hall of Fame.

To draw people to such an event, he created, “The World Massage Festival”. It is an annual event that travels around the country. Mike set the following Mission Statement for the Festival: To honor those who built the bridges for our profession, to educate the general public about massage, to educate therapists about different types of massage and to have fun.

Mike has many more plans for the massage profession and they all will make it better for therapists.