Board Certification – Laura Allen MT.com

September 13, 2025September 13, 2025

The Financial Health of Massage Organizations: NCBTMB

Looking back through my older blogs, I see that the first time I reported on the finances of the NCBTMB was in 2010…fifteen years ago. Things have changed drastically since then. The FSMTB, established in 2005, rolled out the MBLEx in 2007, back when the National Certification Examinations (one in Therapeutic Massage, one in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork, and the National Exam for State Licensing) were the choices for licensing in almost every regulated state. A few states had and continue to have their own licensing exams. The last NCBTMB exam intended for entry-level licensing purposes was given February 2015. The NCBTMB continues to offer voluntary certification exams. The organization has seen a lot of changes since then. I reported on their finances in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2019. Bear in mind that tax-exempt organizations are on a different filing schedule than the general public, so this blog, posted 09/13/2025, reflects the financial filing submitted on for the 2023 calendar year, or tax year beginning 03-01-2023 , and ending 02-29-2024. The actual form is posted on ProPublica. Filings of this and other exempt entities are usually listed there, as well as on Candid.

For my older blogs, I used Guidestar, but their page for exempt entities is now pointed to Candid.

ProPublica has filings from the NCBTMB dating back to 2007. For that fiscal year, the NCBTMB showed total revenue of $8,655,003.

For the 2023 filing, total revenue is $1,281,328. Part of their revenue for 2023 was $174,200 in grants, reportedly from AMTA. They weren’t getting grants in 2007, but they didn’t need any. Their operating expenses in 2007 were $8,747,653. Their operating expenses in 2023 were $1,131,271.

To make a long story short, they’re not what they once were. The MBLEx changed the whole landscape of massage licensing exams. But they’ve also cut their expenses to reflect that. The current CEO, Shelly Johnson, received a salary of $134, 327 plus an estimated $7,565 in other compensation in 2023.

In comparison, in 2007, then- Executive Director Chris Laxton was paid a salary of $191,962 plus $1,769 in benefits and $7,680 for an expense account.

The telling difference is the compensation that was paid to board members in 2007 compared to what they are paid now. I know several of the 2023 board members, including Dolly Wallace, the then-chairperson (Christopher Deery is now the Chair). Dolly was paid the magnanimous total of $4,200 for leading the board, and the filing says she worked 4 hours per week (I call BS on that, having served on public boards before). Other board members for the 2023 filing were paid between $1350-$1800. It’s basically a volunteer job. Nobody’s getting rich…but they used to.

In 2007, Board Chair Donna Feeley was paid over $100,000 for supposedly working 10 hours a week. Let it be said that Feeley and then-Executive Director Chris Laxton came under extreme fire from former members of the board, who raised numerous concerns about their manhandling NCBTMB matters instead of having board discussions and votes. One being that they decided to change Laxton’s title to CEO instead of Executive Director without any consultation with the board members. You can see the letter written by concerned former board members here.

I’ve written about Feeley before. She is deceased and not here to defend herself, but she notoriously held a board meeting in Hawaii and was known for taking limos and going to 5-star restaurants at NCBTMB expense. None of the present board members would do any such thing. The NCBTMB also spent over $925,000 on legal expenses during 2007, reportedly for filing lawsuits against states who chose to use the MBLEx. We see how that turned out.

The NCBTMB is a different animal than it used to be. The massage regulatory landscape evolved and so did they. They have a great CEO and great board members, and are fulfilling their now-mission of providing voluntary certification instead of licensing. No one is required by any state to get Board Certification. People do it because they want to. The NCBTMB has been around since 1992, and they aren’t going anywhere. They’re rolling with the changes.

January 25, 2015September 14, 2025

Board Certification: Just Do the Right Thing

In my last blog, I was critical of the fact that the NCBTMB‘s new Board Certification exam has been adopted by VA and CA for licensing purposes. I have heard through the grapevine that Oregon intends to do the same, but nothing is on their website to that effect yet.

After the blog was released, I was contacted by the NCBTMB’s CEO, Steve Kirin, and Board Chair Leena Guptha, who were upset with my criticism and wanted to set the record straight. Kirin sent me a timeline of the events leading up to the acceptance of the exam by the states, stated to me that the NCBTMB had no prior knowledge that it was going to happen, and that they notified the FSMTB as soon as these developments came to their attention. I appreciate that they contacted me. I appreciate that they notified the Federation; it was the right thing to do.

They also stated to me that the NCBTMB has no control over the state boards, and that’s very true; the NCBTMB is not a regulatory agency, and has never been one.

However, the NCBTMB can and should take control of this situation by putting some controls in place with Pearson Vue, the vendor that administers the exam, and I stated this directly to Kirin and Dr. Guptha during our conference call.

Board Certification was introduced as “the highest voluntary credential attainable to massage therapists and bodyworkers in the profession today. Board Certification demonstrates a much higher level of achievement beyond entry level licensure—including completing more education, hands-on experience, and a background check—that will be a differentiator for you as you advance through your career, especially in a time where health care and other pivotal third-party professions require Board Certification in order to fill stable and rewarding positions.” From the NCBTMB’s website, here are the qualifications:

Pass the Board Certification exam
Complete 750 hours of education*
Complete 250 hours of professional hands-on experience**
Pass a thorough national background check
Maintain a current CPR certification
Signed commitment to the NCBTMB’s Standards of Practice and Code of Ethics
Signed commitment to opposing Human Trafficking

It’s my opinion that the NCBTMB should put the policy in place that if a candidate wants to take the Board Certification exam, they should have to demonstrate proof that they have completed the other requirements. VA and CA both require 500 hours of education, and in fact, as is the case with the MBLEx, people can take it while still a student. That does nothing to indicate advanced practice.

I became Nationally Certified in Therapeutic Massage & Bodywork in 2000, and I have maintained it ever since. I transitioned to Board Certification when the new credential was introduced. I allowed it to expire a couple of weeks ago, after these new developments came to my attention. My own state, NC, is also a 500-hour state. The school I attended was 525 hours, and in the past 15 years, I have taken more than enough continuing education to meet the 750-hour requirement. And that’s my complaint: I’ve met the requirements. It is just my opinion that allowing people who have not met those requirements to take the exam is minimizing this credential.

This is easily fixable. No, the NCBTMB cannot control the states. But they can control what happens to their credential, by the simple act of having applicants submit proof of meeting all the other the requirements to the NCBTMB, and then issuing them permission to test.

The NCBTMB’s agreement with the FSMTB put the NCBTMB out of the licensing exam business. While I appreciate the fact that the NCBTMB had no prior knowledge of what happened with the exam (and will continue to happen, if the controls aren’t put in place), I urge them not to sit on their hands. I am dismayed that this happened at all, because if the stipulations had been put in place to begin with, this situation could have been avoided. I implore the NCBTMB to just do the right thing. Seize control of your exam, if you really want it to mean anything above being an entry-level licensing exam.

January 8, 2015September 14, 2025

Exam Wars: The Sequel

As I reported in my blogs of October 3 and October 20, 2014, FSMTB and NCBTMB reached an agreement where “…NCBTMB will no longer provide examinations for licensure purposes and will now focus exclusively on delivering quality certification programs.” That’s a direct quote from the joint press release issued by both organizations.

In the wake of this news, cheers were heard ’round the profession, as it signaled an end to the ugly and costly “exam wars” between the two organizations. In case you forgot, NCBTMB darn near bankrupted itself trying to fight the FSMTB and their upstart licensing exam. The fact is that the Federation offered the better testing solution for state massage boards, and the profession has migrated to the MBLEx – leaving NCBTMB with ever-shrinking exam revenues.

With so few people taking their rebranded National Certification exams for state licensure, NCBTMB was compelled to strike a deal with the FSMTB to throw in the towel in exchange for some amount of money. And we don’t know how much cash, because the terms have not been made public. As part of this agreement, NCBTMB said it was going to stop taking new applications for its National Certification Exams on November 1, 2014, and will cease administering these two tests on February 1, 2015.

Sounds like we’re finally moving towards the single licensing exam solution for the massage therapy profession, doesn’t it? Well, don’t head for the lobby to get your tub of buttered popcorn yet, because the next installment of Exam Wars is heating up!

NCBTMB may be bringing down the curtain on the two National Certification exams, but they are now reported to be offering their Board Certification Exam for state licensure purposes. Doesn’t that fly in the face of the agreement with FSMTB?

In October 2014, the Massage Therapy Advisory Committee of the Virginia Board of Nursing voted to accept NCB’s Board Cert exam to meet their statutory certification requirements (in place of the sunsetting National Cert exams). On December 11, 2014, the California Massage Therapy Council voted to accept NCB’s Board Cert exam, along with the MBLEx and the two NCB National Cert exams taken before 2/1/15.

If that wasn’t bad enough, NCBTMB is now allowing people to take the Board Cert exam BEFORE they have met all eligibility requirements for Board Certification. Since NCBTMB is touting it as the “highest voluntary credential attainable to massage therapists and bodyworkers in the profession today”, this policy cheapens the credential. It’s already a stretch for NCBTMB to make these claims, but their use of the Board Cert exam to stay in the state licensure game is a real howler. In fact, I think it cheapens it to the point that I will not renew mine in a few days when it expires. I don’t have anything to prove. And after 15 years of practice, I am not going to spend my money to maintain a voluntary credential that is supposed to indicate you are an advanced practitioner that someone fresh out of massage school is being allowed to get. It doesn’t say anything about my knowledge and years of experience at all. It’s apparently turning into just another entry-level credential instead of what it was designed to be, and that truly distresses me.

Are NCB’s actions in violation of their agreement with FSMTB? That may have to get worked out between the attorneys for each side. Whatever the agreement actually says, we’re headed right back to the same old conflicts between FSMTB and NCBTMB. And we didn’t even have to wait long for the Sequel!