In 1978, Philadelphia Eagles’ offensive line captain Mark Nordquist and lawyer Ken Reed founded a small company in a Carlsbad, California garage. They named the new company DonJoy® after their wives, Donna and Joy.

The first products of DonJoy® were simple support sleeves constructed of neoprene pieces stitched together and pulled over the knee, ankle and elbow joints. In 1980, the product line added an off-the-shelf rigid knee support device called the 4-point knee brace – and the timing couldn’t have been better. The modern era of sports medicine was in its infancy, and products like DonJoy’s were suddenly in high demand. Throughout the next two decades, the small business grew rapidly:

In 1987, the London-based medical devices conglomerate Smith & Nephew took notice of the growing company and bought DonJoy® for $20 million.
In 1995 DonJoy acquired ProCare®, a leading orthopedic soft goods company.
By the late 1990s DonJoy was generating approximately $100 million in annual revenues.
In 1999, the DonJoy management team arranged a leveraged buyout and changed the name from DonJoy to DJ Orthopedics. They took the company public again in 2001.