Jean Shea
BIOTONE Founder and CEO

San Diego native Jean Shea is the quintessential entrepreneur. Her entire career has been spent building businesses. Sometimes her moves were deliberate; in other cases she took advantage of opportunities presented to her. But in every case, Shea was able to take knowledge from one enterprise and apply it to the next, all of which culminated in her establishing BIOTONE and building it into the industry's leading provider of professional massage lubricants.

There was little in Shea's earlier forays into self-employment that would suggest the massage therapy marketplace was her destiny. To help the family finances after her children were born, Shea refinished and reupholstered furniture for people out of her home. When her children began school, she returned to college at San Diego State University to complete an undergraduate degree in psychology, eventually continuing onto the master's program in that same field and augmenting her studies with art classes. She supplemented her income during her college years doing apartment management.

Around the late 70s, considerable consumer preference was developing for hand made, natural products versus the traditional chemical-laden products coming out of the large corporations. The movement spawned the establishment of a host of natural product small business, aided by the availability of many books on how to make your own products.

Shea was drawn to this movement having a personal interest in natural, nourishing products. She started making skin care products for herself out of her home and soon realized manufacturing these products for natural food stores could be a business. Better yet, it would be a business that drew on all her years of experiences in business and management, art and even psychology.

With just $1500 behind her, Shea launched her natural skin care business in 1978. She learned a lot about chemistry and preservatives as she formulated her product line. Little did she know then that this would prove even more invaluable in the not-too-distant future. Within a few years of starting her company, competition in the skin care products market increased and it became apparent that she would need considerably more marketing capital to make her business viable for the mainstream. About that time, a local massage school in her neighborhood out of the blue asked her to create a massage oil for them. Up to then, she knew nothing about the professional massage market.

It didn't take Shea long to see that that the massage lubricants offered lots of opportunity since only two companies were actually focused on the market. In 1980, she established BIOTONE and introduced her first product, Revitalizing Massage Oil, which is still available today. That product formula as well as all subsequent formulas came out of what she learned from her work in natural skin care.

But it was the introduction of the BIOTONE Dual-Purpose Creme in 1984 that really propelled the company to the forefront of the market where it has remained ever since. At the time, there were only oils and lotions for massage therapists to use. Shea thought the market could benefit from a massage creme that had the advantages of both - a lot of workability and it could easily be washed out of linens. Her instincts were on target and the unique product caught the attention and enthusiasm of the marketplace. The rest is as they say history.

Shea continues to innovate. Even in her position as BIOTONE CEO, she formulates all new products. Today BIOTONE offers every type of professional massage product a therapist could want. Four years ago, seeking a new opportunity, BIOTONE made a major move into spa body care products, another emerging area.

It's not only through innovative products that Shea has helped advance the market for massage therapy. She is passionate about the potential of massage as part of mainstream healthcare and treatment and as a result BIOTONE has provided over $200,000 for research into massage. She has been recognized by the industry for her significant contributions. Most notably, in 1996 the Massage Therapy Foundation honored Shea as a Sustaining Benefactor.

It's a long way from her kitchen-based business to the head of an industry-leading corporation with products sold around the world. Jean Shea has managed it all with acute business savvy and an instinctive understanding of market needs and direction, not to mention an undiminished entrepreneurial spirit.

Return to 2009 Hall of Fame
Return to World Massage Festival Home Page