At the age of 18 he entered the theatrical business, managing movie-theater circuits in Iowa and Nebraska for five years.
He then joined Universal Pictures, starting in the studio mail room.
There he went through the vaults for old action footage that could be inserted into the Universal serials.
Universal downsized its production departments, and in 1945 Ace Herman moved to Monogram Pictures where he worked mostly on series films (Charlie Chan mysteries, Freddie Stewart musicals, Roddy McDowall outdoor adventures, and Kirby Grant mounted police stories).
Herman also worked on the TV series The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok.