A Brief History of Orthopaedic & Spine
Center of the Rockies
Note: This information draws on the work of retired physician Stanley W. Henson Jr. in his book “Touching Lives: A History of Medicine in Fort Collins.”
 We’ve taken great pleasure in serving the people, families, sports teams, athletes, and schools of the region since our founding in 1969. This year we're marking our 40th year of care for patients and their orthopaedic needs.
That was the year we began, using the name of Fort Collins Orthopedic Associates. The founders of the practice were Drs. Charles Collopy, Robert Johnson, Ben Magsamen, and Douglas Murray.
The four physicians had come to Fort Collins separately in the 1960s, and after a few years in practice, they came together to form a partnership. They were among the first orthopaedic specialists in the region, and helped pioneer the development of the specialty for patient care.
Our four founders had varied backgrounds. Dr. Murray moved here from California after completing his MD and residency training at Stanford University.
Dr. Collopy was born in Fort Collins and graduated from the University of Denver and University of Colorado.
Dr. Johnson came to the area from the Air Force after residency training and medical school in Illinois.
Dr. Magsamen had served as an assistant professor of orthopaedics at Temple University in Philadelphia and team doctor for pro sports teams there.
Our founders not only led the development of the Orthopaedic Center and specialty services for patients, they also contributed to the enhancement of medical care for the region; over the years they or their spouses served on the board of directors for Poudre Valley Hospital, for instance.
In the 1970s, the physicians pioneered and supported such advances as open-operative and internal-fixative devices for trauma and fracture surgery, clean-air operating rooms with laminar-flow equipment for joint replacement operations at PVH, and arthroscopic surgery, using a surgical scope and small incisions to operate on damaged joints. All these advances made the quality of surgery and patients’ recoveries markedly better.
Fort Collins Orthopedic Associates became the Orthopaedic Center of the Rockies in 1990, when the practice moved to its current location on East Prospect Road in Fort Collins. The building included a Therapy Department with pools and a surgery center, which was expanded in 1999 with the addition of a third operating room and a recovery center.
OCR opened a Loveland office in 1985 and later expanded to a larger building on Ginnala Drive (in 1997). We built our current Loveland office and moved in on December 7, 2009. Our address is 3470 East 15th Street. We're located on East U.S. 34 across from Mountain View High School, and two miles west of I-25.
As the area's population and the demand for orthopaedic services grew, the number of doctors has increased to 23. Besides the four founding surgeons, physicians who served the region for many years and retired from the Orthopaedic & Spine Center include Drs. Jack Harvey, Dale Kaiser, Lee Grant, and Roger Sobel. Of special note is the passing of Dr. Jim Horstman, a partner who died in 2007 from cancer.
In November 2009 the group's partners changed our name to Orthopaedic & Spine Center of the Rockies, to emphasize the practice's services and care for people with back and neck pain and spinal conditions.
| Jack Harvey, MD |
Dale Kaiser, MD |
Lee Grant, MD |
Roger Sobel, MD |
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