Iowa State University Alumni Association| online edition | spring 2006
Joe Hynek

 


SPRING 2006
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Renaissance man

When opportunity knocks, Joe Hynek is there to answer the door. He’ll probably be wearing a T-shirt and a comfortable pair of jeans, and he might be carrying a guitar, or a few solar panels. Or a purse.

Hynek, a Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering, is a true Renaissance man. He’s equally comfortable backpacking across Europe, preparing experiments to be used on the space shuttle, designing hog buildings in the virtual reality center, writing a musical, and inventing The Next Big Thing.

His real passion is music. (“It feeds my soul,” he says.) The engineering stuff pays the bills. Or, at least he hopes it will.

“Everybody is willing to pay me for engineering, but the rest of it is not very lucrative,” Hynek says of his wide and varied interests. “What I want to do is use my engineering to make my hobbies come true. Having the engineering degree opens up the door for me.”

Hynek already has bachelor’s degrees in computer engineering and agricultural engineering from Iowa State. He’s been to 32 countries. “Farmer Song,” a musical he co-wrote with his mom, will see its public debut in the M-Shop on April 7-8. He’s lectured in Ukraine on environmental designs for livestock buildings. His bluegrass band, Pumptown, has released three CDs.

But the thing that’s gotten Hynek the most attention is his solar panel wearables. His “Solarjo Power Purse” (a purse that recharges the batteries in your portable electronic devices) has shown up in USA Today, on Good Morning America, and has been mentioned in newspapers and magazines across the world.

Hynek designed the purse – and hat and jacket and tie and other wearables – after doing an internship with Iowa Thin Film in 2001. His creative brain – and the desire to take a fun elective for his Ph.D. – led him to a textiles and clothing class. He’s baffled by the media’s enthusiasm for his creation but thinks its time has come.

“It’s a good idea, and it just hasn’t been done,” Hynek says. “Everybody’s carrying a cell phone now and everyone’s carrying an iPod, so there’s a need for a portable charging solution.”

Deep down, Hynek, 27, is still an Iowa farm kid who giggles, denies that he’s particularly talented, and lives rent-free as a caretaker for the local YMCA lodge. When he travels, he puts all his energy into searching for adventure and uniqueness and being a good ambassador for the United States. But for all his world travels, he still wants to live in Iowa.

“I really like Iowa,” says the Mount Ayr native. “It’s like home base.

“I guess there are two ways to go about life. One is to chase after the best job or chase after where the money is and always be chasing. The other is, if you stay in one place and do everything you can to make a good community, you can come out just the same as if you’d chased after the job. I’m hoping to plant my roots here.”

-- C. Gieseke

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