Three weeks before classes were set to begin, Jonaaron Jones (BS/MSE ’13, MS/MSE, ’15) still didn’t have an advisor for his graduate studies at the University of Tennessee. Jones wanted to find someone who could help him continue to build his skills in welding. Former Materials Science Professor Claudia Rawn suggested Jones meet with former UT-ORNL Governor’s Chair Professor Suresh Babu because “he’s a welding guy.”
“I went to talk to him, and he said they would love to have me, but the one thing is we’re not going to do welding,” Jones said. “I was apprehensive at first, but he took me over to the Oak Ridge National Lab Manufacturing Demonstration Facility and they had several metal powder bed 3D printers there. Once I saw that for the first time, I was hooked. Forget welding, we’re going to do this.”
The introduction launched a successful professional pathway in additive manufacturing for Jones. After graduating from UT, Jones created a start-up company called Volunteer Aerospace, which specialized in 3D metal printing and components in the aerospace and defense sectors. The company was acquired by Beehive Industries in 2021, and Jones was named Beehive’s president and general manager of external metal parts.
Beehive is a U.S. defense manufacturer specializing in 3D-printed jet engines for uncrewed aerial systems. In April, the company was awarded a $29.7 million US Air Force contract to advance Beehive’s Frenzy™ engine family. In June, the company announced plans to more than double its metal additive manufacturing capacity.
Knoxville serves as Beehive’s Production Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence, supporting multiple printing and post-processing operations. The company opened a 60,000-square-foot facility in Knox County two years ago.
“If someone had to come to me 10 years ago and said, ‘Hey, we’re going to 3D print a jet engine,’ I would have laughed,” Jones said. “But that’s the approach Beehive took because they were confident it could happen. It’s brought us to where we are today.”
Finding his true calling
Jones started out as a welder upon graduating from Oak Ridge High School. After a year, he went back to school part-time at Pellissippi State Community College before transferring to UT to pursue his MSE degree.
“What brought me to the department was metallurgy and welding metallurgy, but I think that’s also what’s made me wildly successful in additives because it’s all metallurgy,” Jones said. “What we’re doing is micro welding. If you really boil it down, we use selective laser melting technology, which is micro welding. That gave me quite the leg up to kind of to get my start.”
Jones has been part of the Chancellor’s Associates program, which brings together local business and community leaders to provide feedback to UT on an array of important topics. He’s given presentations to MSE students to share his expertise on additive manufacturing and also met with them to discuss entrepreneurship ideas.
Even in his own home, Jones is trying to share his passion for a career path he never expected to pursue with the next generation.
“We have a little plastic 3D printer, and I’ve been really pushing my two daughters to at least get used to the general concepts of additive and layered manufacturing,” Jones said. “It’s been fun to see them get to experiment with that and show them that there’s a different way to manufacture things.”
Contact
Rhiannon Potkey ([email protected])