Welcome Deb Kimmett executive director of the Business League for Massage Therapy and Bodywork

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Deborah Kimmett is the executive director of the Business League for Massage Therapy and Bodywork. We’re an advocacy group for the state and have several constituents in Billings. Our local board member is Susan Carlson. A local group of therapists have organized and I’m providing technical support for them.

From my perspective, rather than focus directly on the traffickers, this ordinance goes through legally practicing massage therapists instead. We’d like to remove ourselves from the middle of this: Rather than regulate massage therapists as adult entertainment, we’d like the traffickers to be regulated so as not to pretend to be massage therapists.

If you go to our website, blmtb.org, and hover over the news tab, there are two pages with info there. I think that these cover most of our issues. The biggest being is that these types of laws have many loopholes. One of the local massage therapists pointed out two more this morning. And criminals exploit loopholes faster than they can be closed. And in the meantime, massage therapists suffer.

blmtb.org
Our mission is simple…

The Business League for Massage Therapy & Bodywork,. a not-for-profit organization, acts as an advocate for and promotes the furtherance of the profession of massage therapy and bodywork.

We promote the common interest of the massage therapy and bodywork community in all of its diversity regardless of organizational affiliation and training.

Who we are…

The BLMTB is a group of massage therapists, bodyworkers, and somatic practitioners who see the need for an advocacy group that will promote and embrace the ever expanding diversity of our profession.

Our goal is to provide a counterpoint to the national professional organizations. Their job, and rightly so, is to represent, protect, and retain their memberships.

The BLMTB’s goal is to advocate for the profession as a whole, free of such constraints.

What we do…
The BLMTB calls attention to any issues that might be of concern to our community.

Monitoring
The BLMTB Board monitors the activities of the Montana Board of Massage Therapy, The Montana Legislature and national organizations such as the AMTA and the ABMP.

Advocacy
If we believe that something will adversely affect our community, we step forward to take an active role