Where Aerospace and Music Collide

An aerospace engineer's love of music has created quite the mixture of his two passions. Jerry Mearini is the founder of Genvac Aerospace Inc., an aerospace company that coats various optical lenses and windows with an extremely hard, diamond-like carbon, making them able to withstand battle conditions. During the last nine years they have been extremely busy with optical elements that go into thermal sighting systems for military aircraft, military scopes, and tank windows.

As the military work slowed down, Mearini had the opportunity to play with other applications for the aerospace technology. He saw the opportunity to mix his technology with his first passion which was music: using his diamond-like carbon coating on guitar picks. After more than two years of development, Rock Hard Picks, a line of almost indestructible guitar picks that create almost no friction was created. Each pick is made of stainless steel and is coated in diamond-like carbon. This results in guitar strings that last far longer and a very crisp, distinct sound. So as long as you don't lose it, you should never have to buy another guitar pick again.

Genvac's CEO doesn't want to stop there either. Eventually he wants to build an entire Rock Hard guitar. Now wouldn't that be cool that if they could develop an almost indestructible guitar. I also have to wonder if being near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame had anything to do with the inspiration since Genvac is located in Cleveland, Ohio. As a fan of rock and roll it'll be interesting to see what else this aerospace technology can do with music.