A physiotherapist for 30 years, during which time he estimates he did more than 40,000 treatments, specialising mainly in the treatment of backs and necks, he recently retired from practising in Dunedin.
But his desire to help others continues, through his involvement with a Dunedin company he co-founded called Bodystance Ltd.
The company's first product in production is the Backpod, a self-treatment for neck and upper back pain. It earned a Red Dot design award honourable mention in the Red Dot international design awards in Germany.
That accolade recognised particularly well-executed aspects of design work. Only a handful of Red Dot awards had ever come to New Zealand, Mr August said.
Neck and upper/middle back pain was a ''truly enormous'' problem throughout the world and he believed the potential of the Backpod was ''genuinely jaw-dropping''.
Hunching was the underlying cause of the vast majority of upper back and neck problems and it was getting worse.
While everyone started out upright as young children, they then bent forward to do things in school and on into adult life.
He says a major reason for the acceleration of the forward-bending stoop is new technology: laptops, tablets and smartphones. Unlike desk computers, the keyboards cannot be detached from the small screens so users tend to hunch forward even more.
Mr August lives on the edge of the student area in north Dunedin and notes he has never seen so many hunched young adults ''with spines looking like someone in their 60s and 70s''.
''They've got problems already.''
He explained how the muscles along the back of the neck had to work hard to hold the head up and they strained, scarred and tightened.
That put a compressive load on neck joints and they tended to jam up and lock, causing acute pain and headaches.
With the appearance of a cushioned paua, the Backpod was like a high-tech fulcrum for stretching out the tight hunch in the spine. The only force involved was the user's upper body weight.
Describing it as ''brutally tough New Zealand technology'', Mr August said the Backpod featured a polycarbonate core shaped to suit the contours of the spine, with a cushioned outer.
''It's a combination of practical New Zealand common-sense, through clinical understanding and cool technology - and a chance to do some good.''
While it was a simple and ''logical'' concept, it was one that seemed to have been largely missed or not addressed. He believed it filled a gap in an enormous market.
The other two directors of Bodystance are Nick Laird, former head of the department of design studies at the University of Otago, and industrial designer Andrew Wallace.
Mr August told Mr Wallace what he needed with the design but what he came up with was ''much better'' than he envisaged. The products were made in Christchurch and it cost $80,000 to build a mould.
Mr August said he was speaking as an expert when he said it was the most useful take-home device for the most common neck and upper back problems in the world.
''I know they work. It's not a con, it's not snake oil and it's not rocket science,'' he said.
The Backpod was launched on the market about eight months ago and sales were ''well off the ground''.
Mr Wallace, who recently travelled to Germany and Singapore, said he met German, English and Danish distributors who were talking ''ridiculously large numbers'' of product.
Once the Backpod was ''thoroughly under way'', the next product Bodystance was developing was a patella tracking brace for a common knee problem.
Mr August was also behind the Kiwitub, a portable hot tub which has sales of more than 600.
