Ten years ago Stella had finally found the motivation and time to work off some baby fat from her last pregnancy. So she peddled, jogged and pumped her way around the gym. She had always been a confident athlete and exercise was second nature to her.

On that day something happened at the gym that changed Stella’s career path. She spied a middle-aged woman, not too much older than herself, with a staff trainer. The woman had the usual mask of optimism and trepidation, but what Stella saw in the trainer, or rather didn’t see in the trainer, struck her emotionally. It was obvious that the young trainer wasn’t invested in his client. The hopeful baby-boomer he was working with was just an appointment, a means to a paycheck and Stella knew right away that she could do a better job. She not only had the skills and education to change this woman’s life, she could relate. She had the empathy, awareness, tact and maturity that this woman needed to really succeed and connect back to her body.

Stella paid her way through graduate school by working at the University of Michigan Medical School doing obesity research, and after graduation, stepped up to manage a cardiac rehabilitation in Houston. When she moved to Ohio, she supervised a state of the art cardiac rehab clinic. And when she moved back to Oregon she was an expert in occupational health and safety, managing hospitals, corporate outreach programs and organized and ran an employee wellness program. So needless to say, Stella knew her stuff and it was likely she knew more about fitness than most people at that particular gym that day, and without really knowing it it at the time, Stella started plotting her path to creating Breathe! Pilates.

It was a happy day when she discovered the wonders of Pilates, a discipline of movement exercises based on the visionary genius of Joseph Pilates. Not only did Pilates eliminate her back pain, it transformed her body and helped her be better at all the other things she loved to do.

Since that day at the gym ten years ago, Stella has completed two comprehensive certifications in the classical teachings of Joseph Pilates, starting with the Physical Mind Institute out of New York City and the Peak Pilates Institute out of Boulder, Colorado. Last fall she passed the professional certification exam from the Pilates Method Alliance. Currently she is studying to be a Posture Alignment Specialist through the Egoscue Method, which Stella believes is a brilliantly simple yet revolutionary method for stopping chronic pain and whose approach to movement therapy is a perfect complement to Pilates.