Great Graduates from SWIHA, SWINA & SOY

After retiring from the Air Force and moving back to Arizona, Tom Kreienbrink found the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA) through a Facebook friend. Throughout the duration of his Air Force career, Tom was in Graphic Arts and Multimedia, and for the last 10 years he was in leadership and management positions. “I worked in a design position for FEMA in Washington D.C. for a few years after retiring from the Air Force. Bottom line – I was ready to get out of the 'rat race,' and when I found SWIHA it was the second career I’d been waiting for.”

Tom shared how he’s always had a passion for learning about natural healing methods, nutrition, energy, and spirituality. “When I started studying at SWIHA, I found it was a school that offered practical holistic modalities and techniques that I could take out into the world and help people in my community and beyond.”

Mark Flory thought he had it all -- family, job, house, and lots of friends. Then at age 44, things started to change. “I guess you can say I had a mid-life crisis of identity. At the time of my decision to go to Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), I had just sold a business that I thought was going to be my retirement plan.” Mark was feeling like a failure and that he let his family down.

To top it off, Mark applied and interviewed with a company for a position that seemed like it was written specifically for him. After several interviews and feeling really good about getting the new job, he met with the owner and president. Remembering the shock and disbelief, Mark shared that he bombed the interview and didn’t get the job.

Mark now realizes that he was having a spiritual awakening. “My intuitive abilities had been activated and I was starting to awaken to the possibilities of helping people with these new found gifts. During this process, however, many things came up for me that challenged everything that I was. It is never easy to one day say to your friends, ‘Oh by the way, I see dead people and can read your energy.’ Most of them thought I was crazy and really didn’t want to associate with me anymore. Because of this, I isolated myself and I started to question who I was and what I was really put on this earth to do. There is nothing like being 44 years old and not knowing who you are anymore.”

Growing up as an only child with a single mother, Quintin McCain has seen his fair share of struggle. He candidly shares how he chose to hang out with gangsters in his adolescent years. As a result, Quentin found himself involved in activities ranging from selling drugs to carrying weapons.

Although Quentin attended four different high schools, he succeeded in completing his high school diploma. At the age of eighteen, he fell asleep at the wheel of this vehicle and crashed into a light pole, leaving him with a broken femur, fractured ribs, a punctured lung, and a new lease on life. It was this unexpected incident that helped him to realize he was put on this earth for a reason—to change the world for the better.

The next event that forever impacted Quentin’s life was the birth of his beautiful daughter, Alyssa. Upon her birth, Quentin vowed to be a positive role model for his daughter and be someone she could be proud of. The journey to his destined path would not be easy; there were many challenges such as anxiety, the absence of a true purpose, and the lack of a mentor or role-model in his life.