About Vince A short bio of Vince, founder of AffordableMassage.com & Abram's Creek Lodge & Family Campground Vince Cell: 703-328-1840    e-mail: vlombardi2003@msn.com

Vince's Personal Interests

Vince's personal pursuits include hiking, walking, camping, most anything outdoors, world travel, meditation, creation, spiritual community, family and extended family time, as well as a deeply spiritual pursuit in life. Vince lives a life that is totally drug free (not even over the counter), alcohol free, smoke free, and (mostly) meat free. These life choices are all conciously made out of respect for the body and mind, not due to some previous addiction.

Vince's has a very multi-cultural background which stems from having traveled the world extensively including to several places in the Middle East (Jordan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates), parts of South Asia (India, Nepal), Europe, Central America (Costa Rica, Mexico) and the whole USA. His favorite places at home are the desert Southwest, West Virginia and Maine. Vince spent nearly a year of his life in India pursueing both academic and spiritual interests as well.

Vince's Education and past Employment

Vince also has a Bachelor's Degree (B.S.) and Master's Degree (M.S.) in Engineering Mechanics (Mechanical / Aerospace) from Virginia Tech (1988/1990), and certifications in Computer Science from SQL Star International in New Delhi, India.

Vince's Engineering career spanned 11 years and included working for:
** Boeing Defense and Space (Composite Material / Space Research) in Seattle, Washington;
** Boeing Helicopters in Ridley Park (Philly), PA;
** General Electric Large Commercial Jet Engines (Fatigue and Life Analysis) in Evendale (Cincinnati), OH;
** Newport News Shipbuiding in Crystal City (Arlington), VA.
Vince's last job was as a Java and then Microsoft programmer for
** Verizon Communications in Alexandria, VA --
this drove him to pursue a more peaceful life in Massage Therapy and in nature.

Vince is a creator, a problem solver and a master in the making of multi-tasking and manifestation of his dreams. He believes that everything in life is simple, no matter how complex it may seem. When seemingly complex problems are broken down into many smaller finite elements, each element is solvable individually, coalescing to the total oneness of a simple solution.

About AffordableMassage

Vince founded AffordableMassage.com in late Spring of 2001 ( www.affordablemassage.com). Vince believed from the very beginning that massage should be accessible to the masses through an affordable bodywork business model and has offered affordable bodywork ever since (10 years plus). In 2002, Vince held a faculty position at the Virginia Learning Institute School of Massage Therapy in Falls Church, VA where he taught the entire 500-hour professional massage therapy certifcation course (both hands on (practical) and anatomy and physiology). He left VLI to pursue teaching his own classes and to better serve his massage therapy clients with extended hours. In over 10 years, Vince has given massage to over 3,500 clients in more than 5 business locations including Bally Total Fitness Health Clubs (Alexandria, VA , Washington DC), LifeStyle Fitness Center (Keyser, WV), and a mini-mall location in Falls Church (Build America at Skyline). In more recent years, Vince has worked out of a studio in Alexandria, a studio in the historic district in Winchester, and out of his home in Capon Bridge, WV.

About Abram's Creek Lodge & Family Campground

Seeking a peaceful retreat and venue for his massage therapy practice, Vince purchased undeveloped land in July 2004 with a vision for Abram's Creek Retreat and Campground. He then carefully developed a retreat and campground in harmony with nature, along 3/5 mile of wild & wonderful white water stream front. The retreat and campground included 40 forested campsites, weekend workshops, a sweat lodge, 10 cabins and 2 native American style tipi rentals, an outdoor commercial kitchen, a large geodesic dome for workshops, and a 4,000 square foot stone Lodge House and additional 2 story, 2 bedroom cottage house.

The retreat property included great gravel roads, walking trails, and magnificent moss and lichen covered boulders, ferns, and wild flowers along the creek provided by mother nature. Vince finally sold the campground to an eco-minded purchaser on January 31, 2011, after 6 1/2 years of develpoment.
Click on www.abramscreek.com for more on the camp and it's new stewardship.


About Buffalo Gap Camp

Vince was also the General Manager of a large music / cultural / public camp for a year called Buffalo Gap Camp www.buffalogapcamp.com , located in Capon Bridge, WV and now defunct. The camp was a festival venue, cultural camp, kid's camp, retreat, concert venue, and much more with millions in land value, facilities and amenities. The largest event hosted under Vince's management was SpaghettiFest, a festival of 40 bands and over 2,000 attendees. Unfortuately the camp's monthly and annual bills greatly exceeded it's monthly and annual income and it has been up for sale since it's closure in Oct. 2010.


Current Plans
& Off-Grid West Virginia Alternative Energy Venture

Vince is now practicing massage therapy and seeking a very peaceful life post-sale of his retreat center. He lives in Capon Bridge, WV on 2 1/2 acres of forest. He enjoys cooking out, building fires, hanging out with friends, family and his extended spiritual community.

He recently created/founded a new venture and website called Off Grid West Virginia -- www.offgridwv.com -- where he provides free handboooks for alternative energy system design and installation. His first handbook -- Solar Power 101 is complete and on-line now... Wind Power 101 is in the works. His new website and venture attempts to provide important printable information for off grid living including survivial skills, power generation, edible plants, and much more. It is a hobby and past time, but Vince expects this venture to lead to teaching workhops in alternative energy as well as eventually getting into alternative energy system design and installation... it's a fun journey.


Vince's Values

Vince is vegetarian and socially conscious. He spends his earned income in an educated and socially conscious way as best he can. He has great concerns about the damage to our planet and it's environment that is being caused by 7+ billion people and unconcious and short sighted development. He is concerned about the escalating cycles of war on our planet and the growing gap between the Have's and Have Nots as well as the lack of good education missing from the lives of billions. He is concerned about the increasing violence that we expose our children and families to and the numbness towards violence that our children are adapting to. He is concerned about a lack of family planning by billions and the millions of unwanted babies that are being produced on our planet annually. He is especially concerned about U.S. and European economic collapse from massive government debt, greedy bankers, wall street exec's, energy exec.'s, pharmaceutical exec's, fortune 500 companies, and Media Moghuls that are destroying the social and financial safety nets affecting the lives of hundreds of millions globally and at home.

Vince accepts and believes in all religions and loving spiritual doctrines. Vince believes in love, charity, compassion, honesty, openness, and transparency (H.O.T.) as the guiding principle in all affairs and in all choices.
His motto is: You must be the change you wish to see in the world -- thank-you Mahatma Gandhi for your inspirations.