Dr. Ray Drury, a second generation chiropractor, opened his first Upper Cervical practice in a small town in North Carolina where he knew not one person in the whole state. After months of struggling, he started reading every business book he could get his hands on and listening to tapes by the top business coaches and trainers in America. In less than a year, Dr. Drury opened his second office. He has opened and successfully operated three more Upper Cervical practices in his 14 years in business. Dr. Drury has spent years developing reproducible, turnkey systems to build his Upper Cervical practices to some of the busiest, most profitable in the world. He has been teaching Upper Cervical doctors how to use these same systems to build high volume, low stress practices since 1998. 

Dr. Drury now works full time coaching UCHC doctors practicing all over the world. He trains doctors and staff on the same systems he developed for his own offices. He teaches seminars on Upper Cervical practice building at a variety of different schools, is a sought after speaker at conferences and seminars, and helps organize UCHC seminars and Boot Camps. He also planned Upper Cervical Evolution 2007 in Las vegas, an event that has forever changed the relationships between all Upper Cervical Techniques. 

He is always learning and testing new procedures and marketing ideas trying to stay up to date and improve upon the systems he started developing years ago. He works with the UCHC team to develop new ways to improve upon current systems, build public awareness, and create new products and marketing tools to promote Upper Cervical care.

Dr. Drury co-founded Upper Cervical Health Centers because of two things. One, he has seen to many excellent Upper Cervical doctors fail in practice. He knew that if he had the opportunity to teach some of these doctors the same systems that he had taught his own doctors in his offices, those doctors could turn their practices around. If this could happen, then more lives could be changes or saved through Upper Cervical care. 

The second reason Dr. Drury co-founded UCHC was because he had a dream that Upper Cervical care would one day be the primary form of healthcare in the world. He knew that helping individual offices become successful would not be enough to make a global change. The only way to do that was to unify and create an identity for Upper Cervical care that could be recognized everywhere. This is the real vision that created Upper Cervical Health Centers. This is what makes Dr. Drury so excited about the future of Upper Cervical care and the future of Upper Cervical Health Centers.

Dr. Thad S. Vuagniaux is currently the Co-Founder of Upper Cervical Health Centers, LLC and the Director of the UCHCA in Glen Carbon, IL.  He earned a B.S. degree from the University of Illinois, his Doctorate from Logan College and his Upper Cervical Certification from the Kale Research Center. He has practiced Upper Cervical Care for the past thirteen years with his wife and brother, both of whom are Upper Cervical Doctors.

In 1993, Dr. Vuagniaux opened his first practice in the small town where he was born and raised. His first two years in practice were modestly successful but he soon realized that it wasn’t nearly as easy to build a practice as he had envisioned while in school.

He soon created his own “public outreach” program geared specifically towards upper cervical care. He began running educational ads in his local media and started public speaking on a regular basis.  At one time, he was giving two to three talks per week. The “public outreach” program helped in several ways but most importantly, the articles and speaking engagements enabled him to reach more people with the message about UC care.  By his third year in practice, he was averaging nearly 85 patients a day out of a small 1,100 square foot office.

By the end of 1996 things began to change. Several local ACA doctors had contacted him threatening to turn him into the Board because they didn’t believe upper cervical care was a legitimate chiropractic procedure and his advertising was “potentially misleading”. Dr. Vuagniaux defended UC care and refusing to back down to their intimidation, so they eventually turned him into the Illinois Medical Board. After a brief hearing, the Board attempted to fine him $2,500 for the use of the term “Kale Certified” and claims that his advertising was “potentially” misleading and “prayed on the fears of the public”.

Having known that he had not violated a single law and witnessing first hand the bias, prejudice and unfair treatment towards Upper Cervical Doctors, Dr. Vuagniaux decided to counter sue the Board. After a seven year, $160,000 legal battle which ended in the Illinois Supreme Court, the charged against Dr. Vuagniaux were dropped.

To this day, he credits his fight with the Board for his success in practice. Not only did it strengthen his conviction for Upper Cervical but more importantly, it also taught him how to build a practice without advertising. He learned very quickly, that if he were to continue to thrive in practice, he would have to become a master at “Internal Marketing”. It was during this seven year battle with the Board that Dr. Vuagniaux developed the systems necessary to create a Referral Based, Wellness Practice.

As a full-time consultant and coach, he is dedicated to helping each and every UCHC member in attaining the same level of success he was able to achieve in practice. He brings his strength in Patient Education and his knowledge and experience in building a Referral Based, Wellness Practice to the UCHC family. In addition to coaching the current UCHC doctors, he has had several associate doctors under his guidance whom he has helped in their pursuit of personal and professional growth and development.

Along with Dr. Drury, they have developed systems which have stream-lined Upper Cervical practices as we know them today. Having personally used these systems and witnessing them in action, they have dramatically decreased the learning curve and stress for new doctors while increasing the growth and passion in many veteran doctors.

Dr Bart J Patzer, a third generation Upper Cervical doctor, has practiced in Austin Texas for 16 years with an emphasis on family wellness care. He received his Bachelors of Business Administration from Angelo State University in 1985 with a major in marketing and a minor in chemistry.  Dr. Patzer was a sales representative for Lederle Laboratories in their nutrition division where he was promoted to a pharmaceutical representative and achieved the “Top Ten “ status in the country.

Dr. Patzer has opened and operated four Upper Cervical practices in Texas.  He was a regional developer for Chiropractic USA, one of the first large scale franchises for chiropractic.  He was part of the Platinum Elite team of Waiting List Practice (WLP) for 5 years.  Dr. Patzer also served as an assistant coach within WLP, guided their student program and won “Chiropractor of the Year” in 2003, 2004 and 2007. Dr. Patzer is a sought after speaker at many Chiropractic colleges, seminars and conferences on Upper Cervical, inspiration/motivation, and practice success.

Dr. Patzer serves on the board of directors and as a technique instructor for Orthospinology.  He is also on the board of the Academy of Upper Cervical Chiropractic Organizations and serves on the Post Graduate Faculty of Sherman Chiropractic.   Dr. Patzer is a past president of the Travis County Chiropractic Society and has just recently been appointed the Texas representative for the ICA. He currently serves as a broker for Upper Cervical offices, helping bring potential sellers and buyers together all over the country. Dr Patzer has also been on four mission trips to foreign countries hoping to make Upper Cervical care available in those countries.

Dr. Patzer or “BJ” has always had a vision for Upper Cervical that has paralleled that of UCHC.  He knew that opening a few offices on his own would not reach the vast amount of people that need Upper Cervical care.  Dr. Patzer also knew there were a lot of excellent Upper Cervical doctors that weren’t excellent business people and felt that he could take his years of knowledge and business success and use it to help guide them in developing successful practices.  Dr. Patzer is now part of the UCHC team and serves as a District Franchise Manager where he works closely with each office monitoring day-to-day operations, providing consulting and individualized training.

Glenda has over 12 years of experience building and managing Upper Cervical practices. She has vast experience dealing with insurance companies, billing and coding, developing office policies, implementing multiple marketing programs, hiring and training staff members, organizing and keeping up with office stats and managing multiple high volume Upper Cervical practices at the same time.

Glenda has been training doctors and staff on opening, operating and building Upper Cervical practices since 1998. She now works as Director of Operations for UCHC where she works to train doctors and office staff on the systems she helped develop over the last 12 years. Glenda teaches the UCHC procedures through seminars, in-office training and one-on-one phone consultations. Glenda thrives on setting patient and financial goals for new UCHC offices and seeing that those goals are achieved.