Often, the greatest adventures in life come to us by surprise. This would ring true for Doug Adams, the CEO of ACE Running, who started his professional journey studying physical therapy at the University of Delaware. There he met Irene Davis, someone who would change his life through her mentorship. Alongside Davis, Adams began exploring a topic that would later be the foundation for his company: gait analysis. Through this research, Adams had the opportunity to work with people from across the globe, and he was able to observe and interact with all different kinds of runners. Because of this, Davis says that “running has become a great passion and something that has just been a great part of my life.”
From these experiences, Adams knew he wanted to continue working to help runners become their best, healthiest selves, and thus, ACE Running was born. The staple of ACE Running is the 3D motion analysis. This system marks a person’s gait, allowing a model of them to be animated on the computer. From there, analysts, such as Adams himself, can go in and devise a plan that will benefit the runner in the most efficient manner. This technology is available for medical and fitness professionals. ACE Running works with them so that they can learn about all the possible tools that they can provide to their clients.
“I got started in gait analysis because I had a great mentor in Irene Davis, when I was at physical therapy school at University of Delaware.
And we started doing gait analysis, and we had people coming from all over the world, and I was lucky enough to be her assistant. And we were able to really get a lot of experience working with runners and continued working with runners. So running has become a great passion and something that has just been a great part of my life.
ACE running is a company that focuses on providing a clear pathway to working with runners. So our customers are medical and fitness professionals. And what we do is we provide them education, tools and resources to provide great service to runners.
So the 3D motion analysis is a portable system, and it works just like when you make a Pixar movie or a video game, where you put reflective markers on specific spots on the body.
And then as the runner moves, we create a 3D model of them. And we can look at each joint and say what the knee’s doing, what the hip’s doing and how that might be affecting the running for him.
Delaware has been great access for it, not just only the location, but the infrastructure. So it’s really been such a great community. And that’s one of the things that I love about Delaware is when we start a business, so many people are willing to help out.
And it’s great because you can create such a network in Delaware that makes a huge benefit in accelerating your business.” –Doug Adams
Choosing where to stake your grounds for a livelihood is a tough and serious decision. Delaware hopes to make that decision a bit easier. From statistics to personal testimonies, the website for Delaware has much to offer in terms of why America’s First State would be the ideal place to settle. Whether forming a business—where the state is ranked eighth in the nation for doing business—or just looking somewhere new to move—with nationally ranked healthcare and school curricula—Delaware’s Live Love website provides an abundance of resources, reasons, and information to help you make the choice.
Delaware was where Adams’ journey with ACE Running began, long before he realized it, so it only seems fit that he would locate his business in the state where everything changed. While ACE Running is centralized in Delaware, it looks to help runners across the globe. Adams returned to Delaware for many reasons, one of which being the physical location, near large metropolises, namely Washington D.C. However, Adams also cites the infrastructure of the state to have been a huge positive for his company. From the get-go, there has been a community raring to get this company up on its feet, which is a big deal for those just thinking about forming a business. Adams is fond of the people of Delaware, who make it easy to network and stay connected. ACE Running has been able to go off without a hitch because there exists a strong community that is willing to help him succeed.