Since 1953
JAECO Orthopedic had its beginnings in 1953 when Jack and Helen Conry came to care for polio patients at the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute in Warm Springs Georgia. Jack, of whom it was once said, "had the ability to take a complex problem, simplify it and make it work", and himself a survivor of polio came to care for those whose affliction he knew well. Together with Helen, an occupational therapist, they brought together a hands-on approach highly prized in solving the myriad problems that paralysis brings.
In 1954 Dr. Vernon Nickel, the chief orthopedist at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center, asked Jack and Helen to come to California to help him develop specialized orthotic solutions and rehabilitation treatments for Rancho Los Amigo's newly formed Occupational Therapy department. Helen improvised and Jack would then refine positional devices, adapted equipment to prevent deformities, and created devices to help patients achieve independence in their self-care needs. About this time Jack and Helen realized they could serve a wider number of those in need.
In 1955 Jack and Helen bought a new house, with a double car garage - half of which Jack used up to create the devices that Rancho Los Amigos used to assist their patients. Soon he began to supply these devices to a wider marketplace.
Jack continued his tasks at Rancho Los Amigos, training new technicians and fabricating the devices for its patients. Helen began the task of raising a family and starting the fledgling business of JAECO Orthopedic.
In 1958 Jack and Helen started selling their first MAS, JAECO's Original Mobile Arm Support product. Together with the wrist orthosis devices that Jack had designed, business grew - to the point that by 1965 it made sense to move the family and business to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Jack became the Head Orthotist at the Hot Springs Rehabilitation Center. Helen managed both the tasks of family and JAECO's growing business.
Hot Springs was a quieter community, better served to raising a family, and it provided a more centralized location from which to market the company's new devices to a growing number of customers both in the United States and abroad. Jack continued to refine his designs until his death in 1977.
Helen continued running the business with all her sons helping out at one time or another until her retirement in 2000, when she turned over operations to her son Mark who now carries on the tradition.