Buddy Hammonds

BFA, AEA, LMT, AOS, BCTMB, RYT-500, ICF

I’ve collected a lot of letters after my name. Those letters mark milestones in my personal and professional life and when I connect the dots, I can see that distinct shapes have materialized:

Teacher, Educator, Coach

BFA

I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre

I started dancing at age 16 (the only boy in my small Georgia town’s small ballet studio) and devoted my after school hours to show choir and theatre. The performing arts were my passion and the most natural path forward for me as I graduated high school and looked toward the future.

I started my undergraduate studies in music theatre at the University of Northern Colorado and completed my degree at Elon University in North Carolina. I graduated in 2004 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Music Theatre.

AEA

I’m a member in good standing of Actors’ Equity Association

My professional career as a singer / dancer / actor / flying trapeze artist / aerial performer took me through three US National Tours including the Broadway First National Tour of All Shook Up where I got my “Equity card” (industry-speak for joining the professional stage actors’ union).

I had both good fortune and good training and worked steadily as a professional performer in New York and regionally for a number of years. In my late 20’s, the things that had been uniquely rewarding about my career as an actor (variability, travel, novelty) started to become the things that were uniquely challenging (inconsistency, lack of roots, relentless change). My needs were changing and I needed my career to evolve and support the new identity I was trying on.

LMT / AOS

I’m a New York State Licensed Massage Therapist with an Associate of Occupational Studies degree in Massage Therapy.

Because New York is too expensive a place to sit around and think about your life, I took a contract with Disney Cruise Lines that would offer me some time away from NYC where I could get paid and also piece together "What's next?"

However, mid-contract, an unexpected and significant shoulder injury sent me back to New York earlier than I’d planned. Within a week, I’d found an apartment, found a job, and enrolled in school for massage therapy (one of the long-term options that I’d been considering). The change was sudden, but I'd already put a lot of thought into my career transition. I spent 16 months studying anatomy, physiology, neurology, myology, pathology, traditional Chinese medicine, hands-on technique, and clinical skills at the Swedish Institute of Health Sciences in Manhattan while also waiting tables to pay the bills.

I graduated in 2011 with an Associates in Occupational Studies in Massage Therapy and passed the New York State boards to receive my license to practice massage and bodywork.

BCTMB

I’m Board Certified in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork.

My professional career as a massage therapist took me very quickly into business and people management. For three years, I managed high-end spas on New York’s Upper East Side where I supervised teams of massage therapists, estheticians, nail technicians, and customer-facing desk staff. I turned several mature but underperforming spas into consistently profitable businesses through sales and skills coaching, metrics and analysis of business performance, and customer engagement.

I learned more than I ever expected, but I was working in a corporate culture which elevated bottom-line performance above all else. In the eyes of the business, I was only ever as good as my past month’s performance. After three years, my work again began to take more from me than it was giving to me. I knew that I needed to make a change. When I had the opportunity to transition back to the front lines of continued care by joining Google’s massage therapy team as a hands-on therapist, I leapt for it. After a few years as a manual therapist at Google, I stepped into the role of Operations and People Manager for Google’s Health and Performance team, engaging in program management for the recovery program and people management for thirteen direct reports. After a year and a half in that role, interviewed and accepted a role in POps Benefits as a Wellbeing Specialist, cultivating and scaling programs and partnerships to support Googlers’ wellbeing at global scale.

During those years I also started teaching professional continuing education to massage therapists and healthcare professionals through the continuing education department at my alma mater, Swedish Institute and joined the school’s Program Advisory Committee.

RYT-500

I’m a Registered Yoga Teacher at the 500-hour level.

In my first few years at Google without management responsibilities, I began to understand more clearly the themes that connected the dots in my life to that point: teaching, education, helping people to get better at being themselves. I wanted to bring more teaching into my life so I invested 500+ hours over 2 years in the study of yoga's philosophical and physical practices that would empower me to move from experienced practitioner to fledgling teacher.

I also had the good fortune to assist my mentor in teaching a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training and for a month, immersed myself in the art of teaching teachers how to teach.

ICF

I'm a certified executive and leadership coach through the International Coaching Federation.

In 2020, when COVID derailed all of the normals, I found that I was managing a team of massage therapists who, for a time, were not able to perform their core roles and many of whom stepped into temporary roles in other product areas. Suddenly I was managing people who I didn’t have the role-related knowledge to effectively lead. I needed to become a better manager.

Looking back, I saw that the dots I’d connected over my years as a professional took the shape of a teacher, an educator, and a coach. I saw that I've thrived the most when empowering someone else become better at being themself.

While employed at Google, I enrolled in the Hudson Institute of Coaching, a year-long course of study that emphasizes rigorous academic reading, significant practice, and long-term co-working with a supervised small learning group. Hudson leads the industry of coaching education and matriculates only ~100 professionals through its program each year. I graduated in March of 2022 and and In July of 2022 was certified as an ICF accredited coach at the ACC level.

At the end of the day, helping you get better at being yourself is where I thrive.

I look forward to working with you,

Buddy