Our History

As a physical therapist in Grand Junction, Colorado, Dell Felix was involved with sports medicine with a small college and a small osteopathic community hospital. One fall afternoon, in 1984, when leaving the locker room at the end of half time, an acquaintance who was the manager of a coal mine stopped him and asked “I don’t understand it. You get the injured football players back into the game after halftime and I can’t get my injured workers back to work.” This made Dell think about how to implement some of the aspects of sports medicine with injured workers. A course entitled “Industrial Sports Medicine” caught his attention and off he went to Dallas, Texas for what became a career altering experience with Keith Blankenship, PT. Testing injured workers functional abilities/tolerance and using a more aggressive rehabilitation approach prompted a move to Salt Lake City in 1986. Further training with Len Matheson, PhD led Dell to starting the “Worker Evaluation and Rehabilitation Center” (WERC) with Alan Bluth, PT at the Sports Mall.

Dell began performing Functional Capacity Evaluations and was asked to teach nationally with Roy Matheson and Associates. Dell was also asked to be on the initial committee with CARF (Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities) in Tuscon, Arizona to establish guidelines for Work Hardening Programs. Dell traveled the United States and Canada to teach Functional Capacity Evaluations and to perform surveys for CARF work hardening programs. Dell started his own clinic in 1993 and continued performing Functional Capacity Evaluations. He then began providing on-site Physical Therapy at Kennecott Copper Mine’s offices in Magna and with C.R. England Trucking. Other therapists were trained and brought on to help staff the on-site facilities and to preform FCEs. Currently, our therapists are at 4031 So. Main Street, Salt Lake City, UT 84107. A staff of four employees assists the therapists with Fit-For-Duty Evaluations at Rio Tinto’s Kennecott Copper Mine in Copperton, UT.  FCE’s can also performed in St. George, Brigham City, Orem, and Springville upon request.

Work Hardening programs are done at the home office warehouse. Recently the upstairs of the office has been remodeled in preparation for the new Functional Restoration Program. The addition of Clinical Psychologist, Tracy Golden, PhD,. M.Ed., MSW help round out the staff for assisting individuals overcome functional barriers such as fitness, fear, lack of strength, pain tolerance, and limited functional tolerances.