Our Relationship with Research

Working with companies in the aerospace and defense industries puts us in close proximity to cutting edge technologies on a daily basis. It’s only natural that industries of all kinds are incubators of new technologies—what sells is often unprecedented, more efficient and simply better than what has come before, while the capital of big businesses allows for large research and development budgets. But sometimes it takes inquiry unfettered by the incentives of free-market capitalism to make really interesting discoveries, those inspired by a naive sense of wonder and raw curiosity. It is often this sense of wonder that propels us along the road to careers in the aerospace and defense industries in the first place, and we certainly haven’t lost sight of this at Holepop. This is why we value our relationships with those in academia. The profit margins may not be as high, but our contributions to academic research are a genuine source of pride for us.

We recently partnered with Dr. Jeffrey Pigott at Case Western Reserve University in his studies of seismic anisotropy. Check out our press release about Jeff and his research about the Earth’s core here. Collaborating with colleagues Dr. James Van Orman and Professor Henry Scott at Indiana University South Bend, Dr. Pigott has used our electrodes to cut zinc slugs. Using these slugs, Dr. Pigott can simulate the pressures and temperatures found in the Earth’s core, furthering our understanding of Earth and materials science. Scientific research often takes us in unexpected directions, and it’s not enough to say that the efforts of academics is not valuable to society because of the absence of financial returns. The benefits of scientific discovery to society sometimes cannot be directly measured, but are almost never completely intangible. It is in keeping with this philosophy that we have relationships with researchers like Jeff, and we hope to help many like him and those at Case Western Reserve University in times to come.