Dr. Pete Hilgartner was born in Beirut, Lebanon. As a child he lived in Lebanon, Switzerland, and Germany. Pete’s family moved to Rowley, Massachusetts where he lived until he left home to attend Tabor Academy in Marion Massachusetts for his Junior and Senior years of High School. Pete grew up raising horses and competed in various three-day horse events and trained for the modern pentathlon, which involves running, riding, shooting, swimming and fencing. He also played soccer, swam, wrestled and rowed crew. His accomplishments were not all athletic, however. He also played the trumpet in a youth orchestra and a jazz band.

Pete attended Syracuse University on a rowing scholarship. He was the team captain his senior year. During his college years, he was invited to attend the U.S. pre-elite and elite rowing team training camps. He graduated in 1984 with a B.A. in German language, history and culture.

After college, Pete moved to Southern California to continue training for the Olympics. In 1986, a series of back injuries took there toll and Pete was forced to discontinue his training due to a severe disc herniation. With the help of chiropractic care and aggressive physical rehabilitation, he was able to regain his conditioning and health enough to endure the rigors of Marine Officer Candidate School in Quantico, VA. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant on April 10, 1987. He served for the next few years as an Artillery Officer. In 1991, Pete led Marines from Lima Battery, 4th Battalion, 12th Marines, attached to the Second Marine Division, in the Gulf War.

After the Gulf War, Pete left active duty to attend Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, OR from 1992 to 1996. He met his wife, Lolin, while they were both students at the same school. He graduated as a Doctor of Chiropractic in March 1996. Pete, Lolin and their son Caleb, moved to Leesburg in May, 1996. They opened Hilgartner Chiropractic Clinic, P.C., in February 1997 and have been practicing in Leesburg, ever since.

Pete remained in the Marine Corps Reserve and served as a Battery Commander, Battalion Operations Officer and Light Armored Recognizance Executive Officer until he resigned his commission at the rank of Major in 2000.

Currently, Pete stays very busy with his practice, lecturing, and writing. He has extensive advanced training in clinical nutrition, functional medicine, functional biomechanics and anti-aging and peak performance strategies.

When he is not working he is busy with Caleb’s soccer schedule. He also continues to train for Masters rowing competitions. His favorite hobbies include skiing, scuba diving, and just “hanging out” with Lolin and Caleb.

Dr. Lolin Hilgartner was born in 1961 in Seattle, Washington. She moved from the west coast at the age of 5 and grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland. As a child her interest in the outdoors was reinforced by her father who took her family hiking, camping and skiing regularly.

An avid, life-long reader, Lolin excelled in school and has always maintained a high level of interest in a broad spectrum of subjects; politics, history, science, geology and literature, to name a few.

Lolin worked her way through college while attending the University of Maryland. She received her Bachelor of Science degree in Kinesiology in 1985.

After college, she moved to Flagstaff, Arizona and remained out west for the next eleven years. Waiting to begin her masters in Cardiac Rehabilitation, she began working for a chiropractor who incorporated nutritional therapies into his patient protocols. Lolin not only witnessed resolution of headaches and back pain, but also saw successful treatment of patients with arthritis, colds and flu, weight issues, schizophrenia and even depression with the addition of nutritional therapies. As she learned more and began to implement various nutritional protocols into her own diet, her long term issues with endometriosis and polycythemia vera disappeared. She was so inspired by the improvement she experienced in her own case, and that she saw in the cases of hundreds of patients who had been written off as “hopeless” by the medical establishment, that she decided to become a Chiropractor.

She continued living in Arizona and Utah, enjoying the unique outdoor opportunities of the west, while completing her prerequisites for Chiropractic College. Her fondest memories of that time in her life were the daily hikes she took and the frequent camping trips into the Canyon Lands of Arizona and Utah.

She moved to Portland, Oregon in 1989 to attend Western States Chiropractic College. She graduated with honors in 1992, the same year that she met her husband, Pete, who had just begun his training there. She worked for a local Chiropractor for a year and a half before opening her own practice in Lake Oswego, Oregon, while Pete completed his studies.

In 1995, Lolin gave birth to their son Caleb. In 1996, she, Caleb and Pete moved to Leesburg, Virginia, where she and Pete opened Hilgartner Chiropractic Clinic, P.C. in 1997. She has maintained a part-time schedule in order to balance her professional obligations and still be able to have time to raise her son. As he grows older, however, she is able to dedicate more time to her practice, though her priority is still her role as Mom.

Since moving to Leesburg, Lolin has been able to feed her passion for the outdoors and the open space of the West by taking four 30 day trips down the Colorado River, as part of the crew for Grand Canyon Dories; the only company in the Grand Canyon who takes their clients through the canyon in wooden dories.

Lolin has extensive advanced training in clinical nutrition, functional medicine, and functional endocrinology. She is a certified DAN (Defeat Autism Now) practitioner. She has developed a strong reputation for her success in helping Autistic children, children with ADD/ADHD and in handling women’s health issues such as chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, anxiety and depression.

She is very busy in her role as Doctor, and “Soccer Mom” for Caleb. She enjoys hiking, camping, skiing, the beach and “just hanging out with my boys.”