Centralia mother teams up with daughters to run Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage

Having worked at the school for years before purchasing it in 2010, Centralia resident Shari Aldrich is now running the Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage together with her daughters, Hayley Aldrich and Ashleigh Caviness.

The school has two campuses - Tumwater and Vancouver - which the family runs.

The trio met with The Chronicle on Wednesday, June 3, in Tumwater to share the story of how they ended up working together, along with talking about the school itself and what they provide there.

Prior to running a massage school, Shari was IT director for Assured Home Health and Hospice in Centralia where her mother also worked, but the stress of the job plus the impact of three close family deaths made her reconsider careers.

In the span of seven years starting in 1997, her brother died after a stroke at only 37, her mother passed away from lung cancer and her sister was killed in a head-on collision near Rochester.

"I thought I was going to die before I was 40. I don't know, I just started training for a marathon, got my first massage, and decided to totally change courses," Shari said. "The minute the hands were laid on my back was like this epiphany that massage is what I had been looking for my whole life, but never knew anything about it."

Aside from helping their clients get both the physical and mental health benefits of a massage according to the Mayo Clinic, licensed massage therapists can also easily run their own businesses.

This enables them to work as little or as much as they want, and also earn as much as they want. On average, licensed massage therapists earn between $36 and $44 an hour.

While Shari's 11-month massage therapy licensing course costs $14,000, students at Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage can finance their tuition costs, even over the span of multiple years.

"I do in-house payment plans, and I can work with most budgets," Shari said.

While she could accept students using federal financial aid, Shari stated doing so comes with federal requirements for additional staff members to ensure aid documents are managed and processed correctly, driving up overall tuition cost.

"I'd price out people that could pay out of pocket," she added. "... Whether you're paying me back, or paying the government back, you're going to be paying the money back. But if it's student loans, you're still going to be paying the money back depending on what type of aid you get. And would you rather be paying back somebody who you can call and say, 'Hey, I'm having a rough month,' or somebody who's going to come into your bank account and take the money?"

Class schedules at Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage are flexible as well, with morning, evening and even weekend class schedule blocks throughout the year. Students learn more than just massage techniques at the school on their way to getting licensed.

"One of my graduates, 2018, went home to Rhode Island. And in her first week had people on her table going, 'Oh, this is different,' like a different type of bodywork," Shari said. "And she just opened her own massage school, because she found herself training everybody around her to the kind of work she learned (here). Now, we've just helped her open her own massage school. The treatment that we teach is a little more advanced, so they're highly desired in this area and in the country."

There are quite a few Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage alumni running their own massage therapy businesses throughout the region, including Kenley Massage & Wellness in Centralia.

"She's doing so well. She said in her second month she was making enough to cover all her overhead," Shari said.

Centralia's Aurora Day Spa is also owned and run by an alumni, and multiple graduates work at Medical Massage & Acupuncture in Chehalis.

Another alumni business in the region is Nearing Total Health in Lacey, which has been doing "fabulous" with the owner now having multiple employees. Sweet Thyme Massage in Shelton is also graduate-owned by an alum who has her eyes set on expanding to a larger location with room for yoga and pilates classes.

"I get a lot of entrepreneurs coming through here with big dreams and big ideas," Shari said.

In fact, Hayley even manages the school's "business in a box" program for those looking to start their own massage schools, not just a personal business. So far, they've helped open 22 other massage schools nationwide.

Aside from managing that program, Hayley oversees and manages general operations at both campuses. After becoming a mother at 18, she took some time off before going to Centralia College and working in the student center as a counselor.

"She had already purchased the school here, so I was working part time at Centralia College and then came to help out with the office side of things here. And then, eventually, this just started to grow and it just morphed that I moved up here full time," Hayley said.

While Ashleigh also studied for a bit at Centralia College, she decided traditional college classes weren't for her and started taking massage therapy classes at Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage.

"When I was in school here, I figured out that I was really good at it. And I was especially really good at the human body. In high school and middle school, I did really poorly at school. My teachers were pretty awful to me," Ashleigh said. "I figured out here that I'm actually very smart and good at school, but it was just never applied in the appropriate way."

Now, she herself is an educator at the school teaching others.

"And then I got to raise all my kids here," she added.

Hayley also now has four kids, and both enjoy working alongside their mom at the family business. Shari isn't complaining about getting to spend time with her eight grandkids, either.

"I always wanted this for my kids, to be able to go home after their kids get out of school rather than staying at a job until 5 o'clock," Shari said. "I didn't get to have that with them, because I was at work until 5 o'clock."

The Bodymechanics School of Myotherapy & Massage Tumwater campus is located at 2330 Mottman Road, suite 106, and the other campus at 8000 NE 13th Ave. in Vancouver.

For more information, call the Tumwater campus at 360-350-0015, the Vancouver location at 360-260-7280, message the campuses on their Facebook pages, or visit the school's website at https://bodymechanics-school.com/.

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This story was originally published June 6, 2026 at 11:18 AM.