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HARTINGTON – Candice Backer wants to bring a health and wellness facility to the center of Cedar County.
The 40-year-old is the owner and operator of Massage by Candice, a massage therapy business that has had a new Hartington location since July and celebrated two decades of business in December.
Candice, who lives in Hartington, currently has a two-year plan that includes renaming her business in the near future and providing more services, such as adding another massage therapist and having a barber and a nail technician on site.
“My dream’s always been to have a spa,” Candice said. “I’m now at a point in my life where I can expand and do those things, but I also want to help other people be able to build their businesses that way.”
Part of her plan also includes having the building where her business sits now expanded either to the north or the south and then adding other additional services, such as an esthetician, a nurse practitioner and functional medicine.
“We hope to expand and have a facility that will offer eight to 10 other jobs to people in the service industries – in healthcare and other specialties,” Candice said. “I want to try to open up the opportunity for other individuals as well. That is my goal.”
Another part of her plan includes offering med spa services at her health and wellness center as well.
“Some of these services include Botox, microdermabrasion, laser therapy, PRP (platelet- rich plasma) injections and ultrasound,” Candice said.
She noted there is a need in Hartington for a facility that offers functional medicine – a systems biology-based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of diseases as well as natural hormone replacement – due to similar places in Norfolk and Yankton, S.D., being booked for months.
“The more natural medicine and functional medicine – there’s been a very big spotlight on that lately,” Candice said. “People are becoming more and more aware of that it’s maybe a better first option versus traditional Western medicine – pills and things like that because there are so many side effects with everything. Maybe more of the natural and functional medicine is the way to go first.”
Having a health and wellness facility in Hartington would offer another option for people who live in the city and the surrounding area and help cut down on travel time.
“People in rural communities should be able to have those services, too,” Candice said. “They shouldn’t have to drive for those things. We want to be able to provide those services. We also want to, if it goes over well, maybe do some type of a scholarship for kids from the rural areas that want to go into these med spa types of services.”
She noted the importance of having young people consider careers in service industries.
“There’s money to be made out there, but you also have to have a very strict study ethic,” Candice said. “It’s packed into a year or two – a lot of (college programs) are.”
She is familiar with kids pursuing jobs in service industries because that is what two of her children have done.
Candice’s daughter Mercedes Carl, a 2022 Wausa High School graduate, works for her as a nail technician. Mercedes took a threemonth program through the Academy of Nail Design in Omaha.
In addition, Candice plans to have her son Carson Carl, a 2023 Hartington-Newcastle High School graduate, start in either the late summer or early fall this year as a barber for her business after he finishes his education at the Xenon Academy, a beauty school in Omaha, and earns his Nebraska barber’s license.
Candice joked she tried to convince her kids to go to school to become massage therapists and then work for her in a smalltown setting, but they both told her they would never want to return to rural northeast Nebraska.
Obviously, her children’s minds have changed as they have grown up. The plan for is both Mercedes and Carson to move to Hartington – at different times – later this year.
“It wasn’t always in the plan, but after they have been away, they have realized how much they really do like the rural (areas),” Candice said.
She also intends to have Bloomfield native Jenna Loseke join her business as a full-time massage therapist this fall after she completes her education at the Serenity School of Massage Therapy in Wayne and earns her Nebraska massage therapist’s license.
Candice graduated in 2002 from Wausa High School and the next year from the Myotherapy Institute in Lincoln. She started Massage by Candice in December 2003, working for 19 years in the Wausa area and since 2006 in Hartington.
“I love what I do,” Candice said. “I’ve been doing this now for 20 years. I want to be able to offer some of those opportunities that a spa can offer to the rural community and also to supply jobs.”
For more information on Massage by Candice or to find out how to invest in her plan for her business, people may contact Candice at 402-640-1059. Her business also is on Facebook.
