Alexander C. Ebner

Alex Ebner did not set out to start a company. He lost his job when his employer lost a contract, a corporate decision that had nothing to do with his work. With few options and a lot of conviction, he got himself into an AANS meeting by helping a friend work his booth in exchange for a badge, and he bought his first set of Kerrison rongeurs with cash. That was the beginning of ACE Medical Company in 2012.

Today ACE is a surgical instrument company in Orange Park, Florida, focused on neurosurgery, spine, ENT and skull base surgery. It also carries on the Wiggins Medical name, in use since 1992 and known as the home of the original black Kerrison.

Alex has personally designed, developed and manufactured more than seventy unique surgical instruments, and he holds three US patents. Much of that work happens in southern Germany, where he travels often and where some of the finest instrument makers in the world are also his friends. The rest happens at the bench and in the operating room, alongside the surgeons who will put the instrument to work.

Among the instruments he is proudest of is the reverse action bipolar forceps he designed with his close friend, the late Dr. Takanori Fukushima, made for working in very narrow anatomy with a relaxed hand.

The Name on the Instrument is his field guide for the surgeons who want to do what he has helped so many of them do.