After establishing the Foundry Treatment Center Steamboat in 2015, owner Scott Borden has passed the torch, selling the residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation facility to Chief Executive Officer Ben Cort last week.

“It turned out to be more than I ever imagined,” Borden said of the center. “Because I didn’t have any awareness of what I was getting into, the scope of it was much larger than I had imagined. I feel we really did deliver on that vision, and made a real difference. We provided a setting unique to the industry and gave individuals an opportunity to find their own path.”

He is confident Cort, who joined the Foundry as CEO in January 2020, will carry on the mission.

“Given where his heart is and what his intentions are, it would be hard for me to and pick anyone better,” Borden said.

The Foundry has been able to expand its services the past seven years, offering 12 beds at the residential treatment facility and eight beds in sober living and transitional housing located closer to Steamboat Springs.

Cort started working at the Foundry as a consultant in 2019, and he was hired as CEO after suggesting the facility needed senior executive leadership.

“I had sworn off ever working for somebody again, but everything at Foundry lined up,” said Cort, who invested with four other people as part of NRT Behavioral Health.

Cort has known every one in the group for more than 10 years, and they all have a stake in the center’s success.

“Three of them, plus me, are recovering themselves,” Cort said. “The other one has a son who’s in recovery, so it’s very near and dear to him. This is absolutely mission-driven for all of these guys.”

Cort left his job as human resource director of a Denver-based S&P 500 firm to help start the Colorado-based nonprofit Phoenix Multisport in 2007. He was instrumental in building the organization known for taking an innovative approach to building sober communities around sports.

Cort was also with the University of Colorado Hospital’s marketing, business development and admissions departments for their substance abuse treatment services. He left in 2017 to pursue consulting, which led him to the Foundry.

“I assess treatment programs for a couple of big labor unions, as well as the NFL and NCAA. The common thing you find is a program that’s really good at telling what they do, but are not actually quite as good at doing it,” Cort said. “The Foundry was the antithesis of that. The Foundry was really good at what they did, and just needed some administrative attention. To have an opportunity to join something that had the hardest components figured out was kind of too much to say no to.”

He said the Foundry’s 10 staff members and Borden’s drive to bring the best have fueled its success.

“The cool thing is Scott’s a really great guy to work for and he handed me the keys two years ago, so there’s no need to change anything,” Cort said. “The only thing we’re really hoping to do is an expansion of services.”

Cort said expanding the center is key to create feeder programs to bring in new employees while also serving different populations.

“We’re planning an expansion of our outpatient services to include Wyoming, and we’re planning an expansion of our inpatient services for a primarily Medicaid, indigent and post-adjudication crowd in the metro area,” Cort said. “With any luck, we’ll be able to kind of take the magic we’ve created up here and bring it to an under-served population.”

As Borden leaves, he is proud of the services provided and excited about recent additions in care, including an extensive virtual outpatient program that allowed clients to continue their care during the pandemic and the recent addition of the Barnes Family Institute, a stand-alone treatment option offering two levels of programming.

“For the Foundry, (the sale) is a big day, but ultimately nobody should see a difference,” Borden said. “The Foundry will continue to offer the same world-class care out on 131 we always have.”