Nick Ackerman, CP, has been named to the 40 Under 40 list by Central Iowa’s Business Record magazine. He was chosen because of his contributions to his profession, including his support and mentoring of the amputee community and wounded service members. Ackerman is the director of prosthetics at American Prosthetics & Orthotics, headquartered in Clive, Iowa. He sees patients at the company’s Des Moines, Iowa, facility. Ackerman, who has bilateral transtibial amputations, has been an American P&O patient since he was a toddler, before being hired as a technician there in 2001. He later earned his prosthetics certificate at Northwestern University Prosthetics-Orthotics Center.
“[Prosthetists] deal with one-half of 1 percent of the population, but we influence their lives greatly,” Ackerman told the Business Record. “Literally every step they take is on something you developed.”
As a college student in 2001, Ackerman won the National Collegiate Athletic Association Division III Wrestling Championship, making him the first athlete to become a national champion without the use of his legs. March 8, 2002, was named “Nick Ackerman Day” by the Iowa House of Representatives. In 2009 he contributed to the passage of the Iowa Prosthetic Parity Law, he is a member and former president of the Iowa Prosthetic, Orthotic and Pedorthic Association, and he currently serves on the Iowa Amputee Golf Association board.
