Building Main Health Collective, Part 1: Our Vision, Our Dreams, and How We Landed in Knoxville
Every business has its origin story, and this is ours.
It starts in a classroom in Lombard, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago, where two students sharing the same passion met. Zach and I met during our first trimester of school at National University of Health Sciences (NUHS). He was studying Chiropractic medicine and I was studying Naturopathic medicine, but thankfully we had many of our early classes together.
I am from the Chicagoland area and had lived there my whole life. I attended undergrad at University of Illinois at Chicago and then went on to NUHS to study naturopathic medicine. I have always had a passion for medicine, and women’s health in particular. My family will tell you I always used to say that I would deliver babies someday. The more I learned about medicine, the closer I got to natural healing. I became passionate about our body’s powerful ability to heal itself and health optimization that came from getting closer to the earth - eating real foods, sunlight, and breathing in fresh air. To me, true health did not come in the form of a pill, it came from nourishing our bodies.
Zach is from Ontario, Canada and moved to Chicago for chiropractic school. He grew up playing high level sports, hockey and lacrosse, which developed his passion for physical medicine. His experience with a chiropractor during his sports years led him to this career. His chiropractor did more than his doctor and truly believed his body was more resilient than others made him believe. Zach knew he wanted to help all people understand that concept - that you are stronger and more capable than you may believe.
We came from different places, but both had the same perspective on health which ultimately sparked our connection. During school we would dream about life after; how we would practice, who we would treat, and where we would be.
We both knew we did not want to be in Chicago forever. We loved our time there - it’s where we met, where we grew, and where we became who we are as practitioners, but we both felt pulled toward something different for our next chapter. We wanted a community, a place where we could raise a family and become part of something bigger. So, our search began. We continued to tell ourselves that “we would just know” when we were in the place we were meant to be. So, we visited multiple cities until we arrived in Knoxville.
Knoxville was the place we had that feeling in. It’s tucked right up against the Smoky Mountains, which meant we got to trade concrete and long winters for warmth, trees, and a slower pace. But more than the scenery, it was the people. Every interaction we had while visiting had a genuine, unhurried warmth to it. It felt like a place where a business built on real relationships and real conversations about health could actually flourish. We packed up our whole lives and moved to Knoxville in May 2026, ready to build something for the people of this beautiful city.
Main Health Collective is our answer to those questions we have had for ourselves from the beginning. Our who, our why, our where and our what. Our care goes hand in hand, taking a comprehensive, root-cause approach to health and wellness. Zach’s chiropractic care focuses on movement and rehab as the core to physical health. He combines modalities like dry needling, manual therapy, cupping, and rehab exercises with chiropractic adjustments to take a well-rounded approach to pain and dysfunction. My functional health consulting offers a natural approach to health, asking why symptoms show up in the first place, and using tools like nutrition, herbs, homeopathy, and lifestyle changes to support the body’s own ability to find balance. We are not here to replace anyone's medical care - we are here to be a thoughtful, natural complement to it, and to help people understand their own health a little more deeply.
Follow along as we take you behind the scenes of building Main Health Collective, from renovating our new space and choosing furniture to preparing for our first patients and finally opening our doors.
We can't wait to show you what we're building.
With gratitude,
Dr. Marissa & Dr. Zach
Main Health Collective
