Part of the MBA education is learning to apply predictable textbook business principles to an often unpredictable life situation. And for Joel R. Christensen, learning to take the unpredictability of life in stride has applied to more than just his Marriott School education.
Christensen and his wife, Tracey, are the proud parents of three children, two boys and a girl. When their daughter, Colby, was born, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy on her right side.
“We wanted to give our daughter every opportunity to be independent and do all the things she wants to do,” says Christensen, who earned his MBA from the Marriott School in 1996.
The family began looking into possible treatments and therapies for cerebral palsy. What they found were innovative, intensive therapy clinics where treatments lasted three to four weeks at a time. Only adding to the complicated process of scheduling time for such a long trip was the location; these clinics did not exist in the Western United States, and the Christensen family had to travel as far as Mielno, Poland, to attend them. “Traveling to those clinics was difficult on the whole family,” he says.
Instead of giving up the benefits of the intensive therapy, Christensen and his wife decided to open their own clinic in Orem, Utah. They started by gleaning as much information as they could from already operational clinics and then entered their idea into several business plan competitions. After receiving positive feedback from the competitions, they started the process of taking their business from the drawing board to reality.
“Because of the speed of the whole project, we initially weren’t able to focus on individual obstacles one at a time,” Christensen says. “We had to try to address them all at the same time.”
Since opening the clinic last spring, families from Utah, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina have attended the Now I Can Center for Intensive Therapy. Others from as far away as Portugal and Trinidad have contacted Christensen. “We’re still working to finalize the visas for our Polish therapists,” he says. “We have already seen some of the clients make amazing progress in a short period of time. We hope the clinic will give other families similar opportunities.”
