Meet Our Founders

Dan is a native of Chattanooga, TN growing up on Signal Mountain, and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. He was passionate about sports, outdoors, and serving others participating in various activities including baseball, football, basketball, wrestling, soccer, track, hiking, camping, climbing, fishing, hunting, community outreach service projects and international mission trips.
Through his various interests he became intrigued by the profession of physical therapy and its unique ability to help others. He pursued this profession and earned his Doctoral of Physical Therapy in 2003 from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

In his career Dan has worked in various settings including, outpatient physical therapy, sports medicine, hospital-based outpatient physical therapy, acute care hospital setting physical therapy, home health physical therapy, and private practice physical therapy. His dream, along with fellow co-owner Kevin Kostka, was to provide a service to their local community in which they grew up. They wanted to help the community heal, get rid of pain, return to their lives, return to their sport or other activity, promote wellness, and prevent injury. With his and Kevin’s well-rounded backgrounds and expertise this dream came true in 2008 with the opening of Summit Physical Therapy in Chattanooga TN. With this dream has now grown until helping multiple communities in East Tennessee. Dan with his co-partner opened Thrive Physical Therapy to continue their mission to help people live a pain free life.

Dan continues to reside on Signal Mountain with his wife Michelle and two son’s Ben (14) and Andrew (10). His daughter Kaila (26) is married and lives close to home. Outside of his work at Summit and Thrive Physical Therapy you can find Dan on a ball field coaching his two sons in all manner of sports or continuing to pursue his outdoor passions. He feels very lucky to live in an area that offers so much opportunity to pursue his professional goals, family and personal activities. “Chattanooga and Knoxville are great places to live. There is great diversity in activities, a town that truly supports its Appalachian roots while continuing to stay progressive, and it is a privilege to be able to help and serve its community.”