About the Publisher                          

Melanie Rankin owns two Natural Awakenings franchises, the Emerald Coast franchise, which serves the NW coast of Florida, and the Mobile/Baldwin franchise, which serves the Alabama coast.

Mother of four and grandmother of two, Melanie grew up in Pensacola, Florida, and now resides in Mobile, Alabama. She has had a lifelong passion for both nature and science, passions which meld together nicely in Natural Awakenings. "As we advance scientifically and as our research methods become more sophisticated, it’s exciting to see ‘old wives’ tales’ and ‘fringe medicine’ move into the mainstream. The inextricable link between body, mind, and spirit is being recognized, and people around the world are reclaiming what we seem to have lost over the last few generations: a willingness to care for our mind and spirit, along with our body, and an awareness of our link to the world around us."

Exemplifying how our convoluted paths lead us to exactly the place we were meant to be, Melanie has a patchwork history leading up to her involvement with Natural Awakenings. She majored in English, with minors in psychology and theater history. She taught at a major university as a full-time instructor for the Technical and Professional Communications division. She then worked in the mental health field, running a psychological assessment program and then coordinating the customer satisfaction program for a large community mental health center. She moved to Mobile in 2002 and joined her husband, who owns a printing company and who was printing Natural Awakenings for four franchises. There she put her technical writing and graphic arts skills to use, eventually beginning her own graphic arts company. When the magazine she loved became available in her area, she knew her experiences with writing, editing, graphic arts, and business management had all led her to the ownership door, and she had only to open it.

Learn more about Natural Awakenings readers by clicking the Our Readers link in the left column of this page.

Read about Sharon Bruckman, founder of Natural Awakenings, here.  (Will open in a separate window.)

Learn about owning a Natural Awakenings franchise by clicking here. (Will open in a separate window.)