Walter Coplen and Kelly Wright founded Coplen Wright and Associates in 2003, extending and revolutionizing the counseling practice they’ve shared together since 1999. Sensing a strong desire and calling to work together as counselors within a locally owned and operated setting, they joined together in partnership and created mid-Missouri’s growing Christian counseling practice. Since its birth, Coplen Wright has welcomed additional counselors, moved from their original conference center, and added an additional location (in 2006) in order to accommodate and help more clients. The Columbia and Jefferson City centers are located in office buildings designed to grow and allow for more opportunities for expanding Coplen Wright's counseling services and ministry options.

The partnership of Coplen and Wright began in 1999 while working for Minirth-Meier New Life Clinics (eventually called Meier Clinic). In 1996, recognizing the need to provide a counseling center in Columbia, Missouri, Meier Clinics of St. Louis sent Walter Coplen to serve as the Columbia center’s coordinator and sole counselor. Two years later, Kelly Wright arrived from Fort Worth to join him in the practice. The two counselors were each hired by the nation-wide Christian counseling corporation in 1994.