Perspective. Process. Progress.Teddy Hodges / The full story
Fourteen knee surgeries. The loss of my brother and a best friend. A changing path through medicine, movement and invention. These are some of the experiences that taught me to hold grief alongside gratitude and take life one day at a time.
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The beginning / A body I had to understand
I tore my ACL at fourteen and played through a basketball season and a baseball season with it.
My knee would shift. Pop. Clunk. It was incredibly unstable, and it hurt like hell.
The following year, I went through four surgeries.
I could not have known how long that story would become. Fourteen knee surgeries. Donor meniscus transplants. Chronic pain. Years of recovery woven into school, work, relationships and ordinary life.
In my twenties, I used a cane. A knee giving way, a car door that would not open far enough, the effort of standing when everyone else could simply stand—those details are part of the story, too.
My life could look capable and busy from the outside while pain was shaping it from the inside. That experience is one reason I want to understand what someone is carrying before assuming I understand them.
Today I move much better. I still have pain. Both are true. Progress matters without needing to turn the story into a perfect ending.
Read the full fourteen-surgery journeyA different way forward
In 2008, Dr. Richard Steadman operated on my knee for the first time. The next morning, he put his arm around me and told me it was time to hang up my cleats. College baseball was no longer in my future.
My knee continued to be unstable. My meniscus kept tearing. I needed to explore a different path.
The search / Practice, touch & science
2009 / Bali, Indonesia
After the conversation with Dr. Steadman and the continuing instability and meniscus tears, I needed a change from the conventional approach. In 2009, that search took me to Bali, Indonesia, for yoga teacher training.
Baseball had been part of the future I imagined. Now I was exploring a different relationship with movement—and with the body I had to live in, day after day.
2010 / Massage therapy school
Massage therapy school followed in 2010. It was a practical way to study the subjects I loved: anatomy, tissues and human movement. It also gave me the opportunity to work directly with people.
I still wanted to become a doctor. Massage school was a way to keep moving toward that goal: studying the body through hands-on work while learning from the person in front of me.
2014 / University of South Carolina
I graduated from the University of South Carolina in 2014 after studying Exercise Science. My plan was medical school. I wanted to be a surgeon.
By the time I finished college, I needed a cane to get through airports and walk longer distances. I had to humbly recognize that my body could not withstand a surgical residency.
As that path closed, another was beginning. With BRACEUNDER, I started my patent journey and my entrepreneurial journey—bringing what I knew about anatomy, movement and living with a knee brace into a problem I could work on.
When a question becomes something you build
BRACEUNDER began with the knee brace I was wearing and a question: how could it work better? My experience as a patient, education and interest in better tools came together in something I could build.
I am a named inventor on three issued U.S. patents—a co-inventor on the first and the sole named inventor on the other two.
The perspective I bring to work
As CIO at Conesco, I worked across the technical and human sides of an eight-figure business: infrastructure, ERP, CRM, communications and the information behind revenue decisions.
The systems had to work for the people using them. That meant listening across functions, following the handoffs and asking what was happening beneath the visible problem.
Today I bring that operating experience into consulting, revenue engine analysis, digital projects and fractional leadership. The work changes. The curiosity remains.
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Still becoming
I’m also a husband, father, brother and friend. Faith, family, grief and a fourth-generation connection to Spread Eagle are part of who I am. So are the questions I’m still learning to ask.
Perspective. Process. Progress.
Whether it’s a business decision or a lived experience, I’d welcome the conversation.
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