About Us

Our owner and President, Ross Lumbert, has been working with electricity from a very young age, receiving his journeyman electrician license at just 15 years old and his master electrician license in 1985. His continuous love of learning took him to Kansas State University, where he received a B.S. (1989) and an M.S. (1991) in Electrical Engineering. Immediately following his graduation, he began his career at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kansas, where he filled roles from engineering to operations management.

In the spring of 2002, Howard Lumbert, Ross’s father, called Ross and told him he had noticed some electronic controls that were dumped in the iron pile at Winfield Iron and Metal, a scrap yard in Winfield, Kansas. Howard thought Ross might be able to use the parts for a future project. Ross’s curiosity got the better of him, and he went down the next business day and acquired them. Those ‘electronic controls’ turned out to be a Nais PLC (which is displayed in the ACES lobby today) and it became the catalyst for starting ACES.

After acquiring the Nais PLC and doing some research on it, Ross needed the programming software to test the PLC. Research led to Wichita’s American Electric as the representative for Nais. A call to American Electric revealed that their sales team was unaware they were the Nais representative, as it was not common in the area. They made a few phone calls and eventually secured the software for Ross.

Almost a year later, on Wednesday, January 15, 2003. American Electric called Ross and said one of their customers, Steve Kay, had contacted them looking for support for a Nais PLC. They were asking permission to give Steve Ross’s phone number. As it turned out, Ross was the only person who had ever called American Electric about the Nais brand software. When American Electric received this call from Steve of Kay Electric, they instantly thought of Ross. Within hours, Ross met up with Steve at Hehr Glass in Hutchinson, where a glass painting machine that had a Nais brand PLC would not operate. Ross connected his laptop to the machine and shortly thereafter found the problem. It turned out it wasn’t the PLC at all, it was just a stuck limit switch.

The most interesting part of this story is the timing. Just the Sunday before Steve Kay and Ross met, Ross and his wife, Jana, had decided to start his own business and call it American Control and Engineering Service. Monday, the paperwork was started, Tuesday, ACES was officially formed, and Wednesday, January 15, 2003, that phone call came in from Kay Electric and they became the first customer.

ACES started out small, working from the Lumbert’s basement and quickly grew and relocated in 2007. In 2013, ACES broke ground on its current facility to better meet their customers’ growing needs and maintain a well-equipped team of over twenty employees. Additional office and shop space was again added in 2016 as business continued to increase, allowing us to expand our services. We continue to see clear market demand and are poised for growth and look forward to the future.