About Our Founder

Colleen Orton

Colleen first gained interest in worksite well-being and benefits while pursuing her bachelor’s degree. While taking courses with the intent of pursuing an engineering degree, both of Colleen’s maternal grandparents’ health began to quickly decline.

I watched as my mother balanced working a very demanding job, becoming a full time care-taker for her father, and trying to preserve what little health her mother had left. All of this while trying to maintain her own health and marriage. I knew these things were difficult, and I also knew my mother’s stressful career had taken a toll on her health as well. My gut reaction was, ‘I never want to be like that’. This was true of both my grandparents, and their dependence on my mother, as well as my mother and her consuming job. That quickly evolved into, ‘how do I help others to not experience this for themselves and their own families?’. I knew intuitively that work had an impact on our health, that I wanted to preserve my own health as long as I could, and help others to do the same.”

Shortly after her grandfather passed away, Colleen took a short break from college courses then found a new major in Health Promotion and Education.

While getting my bachelors degree I gained a foundational understanding of individual health, disease prevention, and the opportunities available for health promotion and education professionals. I also worked full time throughout my program to pay for college. That feeling of work having such a huge impact on our health never faded. I knew that was the area I wanted to focus on. I was fortunate enough to get an internship with Weber State University’s Employee Wellness Program, which helped me begin to understand the intricacies of work and health and the opportunities that exist to improve lives in that area.”

After completing her bachelor degree at Weber State University, Colleen went on to pursue a Masters of Science in Health Education at the University of Utah, shifting her focus from individual level interventions to organizational level interventions. 

Towards the end of my time at Weber State University, I became increasingly interested in how the social environment and workplace policy impacts health. In comparison, during my undergraduate work, where I learned a lot about how individuals stay healthy, I now wanted to know how that could be supported within organizations and communities. My final research for my Masters focused on reducing stress and building trust in the workplace.”

While completing her MS at the University of Utah, Colleen founded Beyond Health with the intent to focus on health education and disease prevention programming for small and medium sized organizations.

Since founding Beyond Health, I’ve had the opportunity to work with hundreds of people from different backgrounds, and in different capacities. I get to work with passionate business leaders who want to create the best workplace for their people. Through serving my clients, and partnering with likeminded organizations, I get to help people optimize their health and help employers retain and take care of their employees.”

About Beyond Health

Beyond Health was founded in 2018 with the goal of bringing comprehensive, research based employee benefits programs to small and medium sized employers. By working from a population health perspective, we work to support organizational leaders in fostering healthy work environments for their employees.

All of our programs can be tailored to the unique needs of your population. In fact, our comprehensive program offerings begin by getting to know your organization and people through our structured needs assessment program. 

We work to align health outcomes with health economics. We do this by focusing on immediate and long term needs of your business and your employees health.

Beyond Health follows these standards

  • Use research based principles in all programming.
  • Maintains complete client confidentiality.
  • Prioritizes integrity over profits.
  • Work to reduce health inequalities.
  • Transparency in incentives, compensation, partnerships, and data.

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