Rick Sasso ’82, co-founder and president of Indiana Spine Group and Indiana Spine Hospital, has spent more than three decades working as a spine surgeon, developing techniques and technologies that have changed how patients are treated — opting for minimally invasive methods.
“I’ve been very fortunate,” Sasso said. “A lot of the things I’ve designed and developed have changed how we take care of people who have spinal disorders around the world.”
Sasso protected the intellectual property from his innovations and benefited from the protection with the help of the Emhardt family — from Dave Emhardt, an Indianapolis patent attorney and from Fred Emhardt ’82, his son, an Indianapolis attorney with more than three decades of trial experience.
Rick and Fred first met at Wabash College as members of the tennis team, where they served as co-captains their senior years under coach George Davis. After graduation, their paths diverged. Sasso went to Indiana University School of Medicine. Emhardt earned his law degree from the University of Colorado.
In the years that followed, their careers and lives took them in different directions until their 10th reunion in 1992.
Both returned to campus married men. Rick and April Sasso and Fred and Cynthia Emhardt quickly reconnected, marking the beginning of a relationship that would continue to grow over the years.
During the visit, Sasso mentioned that he had begun developing new ideas in spine surgery and admitted he didn’t know how to protect them.
“I said, ‘Well, Rick ... that’s what my dad’s been doing his whole legal career,’” Emhardt recalls.
Emhardt’s father, Dave, a nationally respected patent attorney in Indianapolis before he passed in 2015, began working with Sasso to secure patents for his ideas. Over the next two decades, Sasso was the sole named inventor on several patents and named with other co-inventor engineers and surgeons on many others.
“I made every rookie mistake that a surgeon or anyone who's got some ideas can make,” Sasso said. “You don’t wake up and think, ‘I’m going to invent something today.’ It comes from struggle and stress in an operating room and saying, ‘There’s got to be a better way to do this now.”
Over time, that work turned into what Emhardt describes as “Rick and Fred’s excellent adventure” — a yearslong effort to track down royalties tied to the innovations Fred’s father helped Rick patent.
Sasso continued working closely with engineers and manufacturers, including teams in his hometown.
“One of the things I’m so proud of and happy about is the fact that all this stuff that we were creating benefits patients around the world, but also the state of Indiana and my little hometown of Warsaw, Indiana,” he said.
Their “excellent adventure” was not without challenges. Their straightforward professional relationship grew into a prolonged and often difficult process involving contract disputes with a large medical company over those royalties. Around the same time, Sasso faced a serious cancer scare that forced him to step away from work for a period. Both challenges were undertakings that required persistence and trust.
Through both, the partnership and the support of their families remained steady.
Safely on the other side of those challenges — in good health and litigation completed — the Sasso and Emhardt families began discussing how they might mark the end of that chapter and give back to Wabash.
The Sassos and Emhardts have established a new endowed scholarship through the Wabash Leaders Scholarship and Program to support students who demonstrate strong potential and a desire to impact their communities. In addition to scholarship support, student recipients receive programming to develop leadership skills and civic engagement.
“We’ve all had a great time making this happen,” Emhardt said. “Our families have grown up together, and to be any part of this scholarship program and support these students together will just be a lot of fun.”
Wabash College President Scott Feller reflected on the impact the scholarship will have on students and the story behind it.
“Working with the Sasso and Emhardt families to establish this scholarship has been a fantastic experience,” Feller said. “From the beginning I was excited about the impact this gift would have on current students. But during the process I was able to learn about Rick and Fred’s deep friendship. Wabash brought them together and set them on a course for shared adventures over the decades. I am so grateful that one of those shared adventures has been to establish this endowed fund as a legacy gift that honors both their college and their friendship.”
Sasso and his wife, April, have three daughters: Maria, Willa, and Pilar. Emhardt and his wife, Cynthia, have four children: Elizabeth, Caroline, Charlie, and Will.
Both families hope to remain connected to the scholarship and the students it supports in the years ahead.