Abe Petitt

When Abe Pettit graduated from the Tempe campus of the Arizona School of Massage Therapy in October of 2001, he was already well on his way to fulfilling his vision-to work with HIV positive and AIDS patients.

Abe did not always know that he wanted to become a massage therapist. Although Abe’s father graduated from UCMT, Abe held a couple of different jobs before he realized how much he really wanted to heal people. Abe was employed as a systems administrator for a web hosting company. He decided that sitting behind a desk was not what he wanted to do in life. While pondering making a career change, Abe learned that his best friend decided to enroll at Arizona State University, and Abe saw his chance to relocate. He called the Arizona School of Massage Therapy three weeks before the very first class, DA01, was scheduled to begin. Due to a clause in his present jobs’ contract, Abe had to give four months notice, so he enrolled in the first class available, DA03.

While in his Touch for Health class, his instructors gave a presentation about AIDS Project Arizona (APAZ) and Abe immediately knew that he wanted to get involved. As it turned out, his instructors needed someone to fill in for them while they were on vacation, so Abe contacted the program director and was hired right before graduation.

After graduation, Abe continued to work at APAZ and as a Teaching Assistant at ASMT. APAZ served a diverse population, including men, women and children, with each one being affected by HIV/AIDS. Abe loved his work, but when cutbacks were made to the Ryan White fund that supported the program and personal problems arose, Abe headed back to southern Utah to get his feet back on the ground.

While in Utah, Abe took the opportunity to become Nationally Certified, but after eight months of getting his affairs in order, decided that it was time to head back to Arizona. Abe returned in September and immediately applied for and secured an open Classroom Manager position at the Tempe campus. Abe always wanted to be a Classroom Manager as he wanted "give back to students what my (classroom manager) gave to me; sometimes that included a swift kick, but most of the time it was lots of support and encouragement." Abe is excited for DA11 to start in October of 2002, and is also excited to get involved with APAZ again.