Paul Ewing
Lucky you. I get to speak with successful businessmen on a regular basis. Their greatest investment tends to be in their business not the stock market. It’s never too late to invest in yourself.
I speak regularly with Paul Ewing. He could easily be retired and then some, but instead he and friend David Halley, M.D., have created a business around their X10 Therapy knee rehabilitation machine.
Last week, Crain’s Detroit Business published an article on it. If you or someone you care about wants to learn the keys to a successful knee replacement then read this article. Post-surgery, “What they’re achieving in week three they’re usually not achieving until week 12. It’s anecdotal and not controlled, but I’m encouraged,” said James Verner, M.D., an orthopedic surgeon at Beaumont Health System and associate professor of orthopedics at Oakland University. It’s never too late to invest in yourself.
Two old friends, each of whom would be justified in retiring to Florida, are trying something else instead: restoring flexibility to knees via a Franklin-based orthopedics company.
It’s not as odd as it might seem. One of the two, David Halley, M.D., age 72, is a Columbus, Ohio-based orthopedic surgeon who’s been in the business 35 years and has done 8,000 knee replacements. The other, Paul Ewing, 70, is an industrial engineer who sold the specialty cold-forming steel business he built from the ground up, Plymouth-based NSS Technologies Inc., in 2000.
In 2009, they launched Halley Orthopedic Products LLC based on their invention, a machine called the X10 (a play on the word “extend”) that is used to restore and maintain knee flexibility and strength after a total knee replacement. The machine uses pressure to flex the knee to the point where fluid in the knee is released, thereby avoiding the buildup of scar tissue that causes knees to deteriorate after surgery.
A computer screen displays biofeedback information, mainly angle and pressure readings, so patients can monitor their improvement and adjust the settings. The machine is rented for however many weeks necessary to restore the knee to an acceptable level of motion, or better, and is used in the home, saving money for patients by avoiding nursing homes and reducing physical therapy visits.
Halley and Ewing in fact did meet in Florida, but it was in 1978 when both of them had condos there, right across the hall from each other. Many years — and discussions on Ohio State University/University of Michigan football — later, the two got talking about the problems faced by people who’ve had their knees replaced. The engineer in Ewing had grown restless and soon things started moving.
“Paul had sold his business. He made a lot of money with it, and he was going nuts. There was nothing for him to do. We started talking about it and, oh my God, did he get involved. He picked up the jargon and it’s amazing how quickly he caught on,” Halley said.
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E.J. Smith works with new investors that have $2 million or more to invest. He can be reached at: ejsmith@youngresearch.com
