meet the founders + team

Founder

Business wasn’t initially in the cards for Katherine, but a chance encounter with a vacant live/work space and a desire to create a yoga studio that allowed her creative and financial freedom led to My Yoga Room, a studio that offered a variety of accessible sessions. From there, Katherine departed from her law school path and expanded to create Studio PDX and Yomassage.

I graduated from the University of Texas with a degree in Arabic & Middle Eastern studies. After graduation, I moved back home to Missouri for a year to teach Arabic at the University of Missouri. I spent that year figuring out where I wanted to go to law school and landed on a school in Portland, OR. I worked at a law firm in Portland while studying for the LSAT.

About 6 months after moving to Portland, I walked by a live/work space and thought it would be a perfect space for a small yoga studio. My partner and I put all of our savings into breaking the lease on our apartment, and getting everything we needed to open a yoga studio. The yoga studio started as a way for me to hopefully be able to quit my job that I wasn’t happy doing. But when I was completing the application process, I knew that I didn’t want to go to law school and I that I wanted to put everything I had into the yoga studio. I spent the first 6 months working full time at the law firm, teaching a 6am yoga session before work, 2 sessions after work, sessions on the weekends, and doing everything else it takes to run a small business. A year after opening My Yoga Room, I acquired a larger studio, and have since merged the two businesses to create Studio PDX.

Around that same time, I met Tiffany. She recently moved to Portland and was hoping to join the yoga community. I couldn’t afford to hire any more yoga teachers at the time, but I was fascinated by her and her background and really wanted to work with her. Being a massage therapist, she convinced me of the importance of regular massage, and that sparked an idea to put together a session that made massage more accessible. Tiffany put together the session and we spent several months refining it and trying out new things. We realized that we really had something unique and special, and we wanted it to be huge. We created a concept that allows massage therapists to do something that has never been done before: cater to up to 8 clients in a single 90 minute session and offer head to toe massage therapy at an accessible rate. We hope that Yomassage will change the way that people look at massage and self care.

hello@yomassage.co

Founder

Dr. Ryan has been a Social Worker for over 15 years and after completing her PhD decided to learn more about integrative care. She went to school for massage and yoga to learn how to incorporate the mind-body connection in helping people improve their overall wellbeing. She is passionate about the mental, emotional, and physical benefits of therapeutic touch, stretch, and mindful breath. Dr. Ryan has worked to create a luxurious and transformative experience through Yomassage that is not only accessible to everyone but is also safe and trauma-informed. She has taken her expertise and experience in trauma, integrative care, yoga, and massage to create a way to receive the healing power of touch on a regular basis.

hello@yomassage.co