ISA national member · United States

North American Sauna Society

EST. 2004 · Fishkill, New York

The national member representing traditional sauna interests in the United States and Canada, founded in 2004 in New York. Manufacturer-backed governance, three published membership tiers, and an Ambassador Program launched in 2025. Heated Retreat is a dealer member.

Why this matters

The North American Sauna Society is the only national body speaking for traditional sauna with manufacturer backing in the United States and Canada. Its position on infrared cabins is consistent and unfashionable. From the NASS sauna-types page: “not a traditional Finnish sauna; maybe the best definition would be a ‘heat therapy room’.”

That position matters because the largest residential sauna market in North America is infrared. The 2022 NASS member survey of more than 600 respondents found 87% preferring traditional sauna (water on hot rocks, multiple sessions), with 65% of respondents female. NASS's published design guidelines treat infrared as a separately-designed product category, not as a quality competitor.

Reading the corporate partner list is the cleanest way to see who in the US industry has aligned with NASS's frame: TylöHelo (a founding manufacturer member), KLAFS (via Design for Leisure, 2020), IKI (2022), Nordic Sauna, Sauna 360, Bathing Brands, and My Sauna World (National Platinum, 2024). Companies whose business is primarily infrared are conspicuously absent from the directory.

NASS is also where Heated Retreat sits in the industry. We are a dealer member.

History

NASS was founded in 2004 in New York. The public record does not contain a complete founders list. Two firm data points exist: Sauna from Finland identifies TylöHelo as “a founding manufacturer member,” and Keith Räisänen sat on the founding board. He retired at the end of 2021 and was replaced on the board by Mark Räisänen, also of TyloHelo.

The organisation's mailing address, 30 Florence Ave., Fishkill, NY 12524, is verified through the ISA member directory. NASS's own contact page does not publish a physical address; the only public contact channel is saunasociety@gmail.com. The two listed officer phone numbers use the 845 area code, consistent with Fishkill's Hudson Valley location.

The earliest archived mission framing was “demonstrate and promote traditional Nordic sauna experience in the US and Canada.” That framing has been replaced on the current homepage with a slightly broader formulation, quoted in full below.

Mission

NASS's current homepage states the mission as:

“Support the growth of meaningful sauna culture and business in North America by promoting authentic practices, guiding best standards, and educating the public.”

The earlier framing, still surfacing in archived pages, is more specific:

“Demonstrate and promote traditional Nordic sauna experience in the US and Canada.”

The sauna-types page is more emphatic: “The mission of The North American Sauna Society is to promote traditional sauna.” That tighter phrasing matters because NASS uses it to define what is and is not within scope. Infrared cabins, in NASS's view, are heat therapy rooms rather than saunas, and the organisation publishes design guidelines covering both categories while treating only the first as its mission.

Membership

NASS publishes three self-serve membership tiers. The eligibility framing on the Become a Member page is “a dealer of traditional saunas, looking for increased visibility and leads, running a public sauna, or a sauna enthusiast, willing to support our quest.”

The published tier pages do not explicitly state whether these prices are annual, monthly, or one-time. Industry norms and NASS's annual-meeting press release cadence suggest annual, but periodicity is not documented on public pages. Treat the figures as confirmed amounts at undisclosed cadence.

Sitting above the self-serve tiers, NASS's Partners page lists additional levels (National Platinum, Visibility, Regional, Local and Supporting, Public Sauna, International) that appear to be commercially negotiated corporate partnerships rather than self-service tiers. Pricing for those higher tiers is not disclosed. National Platinum members at the time of writing include Bathing Brands, My Sauna World, Nordic Sauna, and Sauna 360.

Events and publications

Sauna Ambassador Program (launched 2025)

NASS launched the Sauna Ambassador Program on 20 May 2025 at an event on the 71st floor of Willis Tower in Chicago. The stated goal is to “identify, vet, and promote authentic public sauna experiences across North America” (including bathhouses, boutique sauna businesses, mobile units, and community spaces) and to contribute to a publicly accessible sauna map. Ambassadors serve as ground-level experts who provide insights and reviews on public sauna venues.

The launch was paired with a Memorandum of Understanding between NASS and Finlandia Foundation National. Ambassadors will be “vetted and trained using criteria co-developed with Finlandia Foundation National.” As part of the MOU, FFN Communications Director Minea Lindqvist Herwitz was appointed to the NASS Board of Directors. NASS Chair Eero Kilpi described the partnership at launch: “This is not just a collaboration. It's a movement.”

The Ambassador Program appears to be the operational form of NASS's earlier Public Sauna Category and Rating concept, launched 13 May 2021 but published without a rubric. Whether the inaugural Ambassador cohort has formally opened applications as of writing is not visible on public pages.

Sauna from Finland partnership (2018)

In November 2018 NASS formalised a partnership with Sauna from Finland, a Jyväskylä-based industry network of more than 180 sauna-adjacent companies. The partnership built on prior cooperation with the Finnish Sauna Society and focused on “sharing knowledge about benefits of Finnish sauna” and “differentiating the Finnish sauna concept in the U.S. market.”

Other recent activity

NASS has held annual meetings in Manhattan in September each year through the late 2010s. It appeared at the Finnish Embassy in Washington in 2019 (EU Open House, 3,000+ visitors), promoted a sauna built by Finnish Girl Guides at the 2019 West Virginia Scout Jamboree, hosted Emma O'Kelly for “The Power of Deep Heat” at Scandinavia House in October 2023, and is North America's national representative at the XIX International Sauna Congress in Oslo, 24-26 September 2026.

Leadership

The publicly listed officers on saunasociety.org/about are Eero Kilpi (Interim President) and Kalevi Ruuska (Vice President). Kilpi was described as “NASS Chair” rather than President in the May 2025 Ambassador Program release. He has appeared on SaunaTimes' Sauna Talk podcast and conducted NASS public events (the 2023 Scandinavia House interview with Emma O' Kelly is the most-cited example).

The Scott Raisanen episode

There is a public-record transition at the top of NASS in 2024 that has not been documented in detail. A June 2024 podcast (“The Upper Bench”) was titled “Scott Raisanen, the new President of the North American Sauna Society.” The current saunasociety.org/about page lists Eero Kilpi as Interim President, with no Scott Raisanen mention. The transition is not documented publicly. The most defensible reading: Scott Raisanen briefly held the President role in 2024, the appointment did not persist, and Eero Kilpi resumed the seat in an interim capacity.

Current board

Emeritus board

Norm Coburn, Don Genders (Design for Leisure / KLAFS USA), Jon Harbison, Keith Räisänen, Nils Shenholm, Kim Temme (Nordic Sauna), and Rick Watson appear on the public emeritus list. The board has historically been dominated by representatives of the largest traditional-sauna manufacturers (TylöHelo, KLAFS / Design for Leisure, Nordic Sauna, Sauna 360, Bathing Brands). This is normal for a trade association, and worth noting: NASS speaks with industry endorsement, not as a fully independent consumer body.

Relationships

International Sauna Association

NASS is listed on the ISA member directory as the United States national member. Canada is not separately named. NASS markets itself as covering “USA and Canada” in older mission framing, but on the ISA roster it represents the United States only.

Search-engine summaries occasionally describe NASS as an ISA “founding member.” That is not correct: ISA was founded in 1958 (its first congress was Bielefeld 1956), and NASS was founded in 2004. NASS could not have been a founding member by chronology. The 2004 NASS founding likely coincided with ISA membership being granted to a North American representative organisation, but no public source records the exact date NASS joined ISA.

Sauna from Finland and the Finnish Sauna Society

The 2018 Sauna from Finland partnership is described in the Events section. NASS-Saunaseura cooperation predates SFF; the Finnish Sauna Society is described in NASS's own 2018 release as a foundation for the SFF arrangement.

Finlandia Foundation National

The 2025 MOU is a cultural collaboration around the Ambassador Program. FFN also runs National Sauna Week (15-21 February 2026), with which Ambassador Program venues are likely to coordinate. FFN President Päivi Tetri characterised the launch as “a pivotal step in honoring one of Finland' s greatest cultural gifts.”

Adjacent figures

The Norwegian-American photographer Mikkel Aaland, whose 1978 book Sweat is the foundational global ethnography of sweat-bathing, is an honorary ISA member and appears frequently in NASS-adjacent media. He is not a formal NASS officer or board member.

What it means for you

If you are buying a sauna in North America, NASS is the closest thing to an industry trade association weighing in on what you are buying. Its position is consistent: traditional sauna is sauna; infrared is a heat therapy room.

If you are a sauna enthusiast and want to support NASS's mission, the $49.50 Individual Sauna Society Supporter tier is the direct path. If you are a dealer of traditional saunas seeking visibility, the $149.50 Sauna Dealer Membership listing puts you in the NASS partner directory.

Heated Retreat is a Sauna Dealer Member of NASS. We carry traditional Finnish-style saunas built by Golden Designs and infrared cabins built by Dynamic. We are aligned with NASS' s frame on what counts as a sauna, and we are honest about the fact that infrared cabins are a different product category that many of our customers prefer for accessibility, lower-temperature comfort, or apartment-friendly electrical requirements. The Aachen Definition is the international technical standard NASS upholds. If you want to understand what NASS means by “traditional sauna,” it is the cleanest one-paragraph answer.

If you are evaluating a public sauna venue, the Sauna Ambassador Program will eventually publish a vetted map of facilities. As of writing, the inaugural cohort's status is not visible on public pages.