Dr. Guerry Grune has four degrees including chemistry, mechanical engineering, and materials science, and two in chemical engineering including his M.S. and Ph.D. as well as industrial expertise with IBM, Celanese, ABB, Praxair, and Solvay related to intellectual property software, chemical, mechanical, electrical, and medical products He also is the Principal Consultant for ePatentmanager.com where he practices patent preparation and prosecution as a registered US patent agent. He has combined this experience by assisting clients in the pursuit of product development, formulations, and intellectual property protection for the last 30 years. He has direct experience in chemical processes, formulation chemistries, polymers and composites, service life prediction, and risk analysis including risk reduction technologies.

Guerry has directed and participated in audit and certification procedures regarding FDA, EPA, USDA, ISO-9000, and ISO-14000/life cycle assessment compliance, and served as an expert witness in litigation proceedings including medical devices. Guerry is a named inventor/co-inventor on over 100 US/PCT patents and pending patent applications. In addition, Dr. Grune also serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Master of Engineering Management Program in the Pratt School of Engineering at Duke University teaching courses involving polymer science, thermodynamics, intellectual asset management (IAM), and green sustainable technologies, including life cycle assessment.

Dr. Guerry Grune is also the Founder and Owner of 3rd Rock Essentials (3rdrockessentials. com) a non-toxic personal care product company.

An avid surfer and outdoor enthusiast, he’s surfed the world’s meccas—Hawaii, Australia, Costa Rica, and Japan. In fact, life for Guerry might have been one long (part-time) endless summer if it hadn’t been for three events that led him to create 3rd Rock Sunblock® —and change sunscreen history forever. The first was the melanoma doctors found in 1992 on one of his surfing partners—only 22 at the time. Seeing his friend’s surfing career cut short (though luckily, not his life) was Guerry’s first bitter taste of the unforgiving reality of overexposure to—or under protection from—the sun. Next came a surfing expedition to Australia in 1993 and what he didn’t find Down Under—American sunscreens. No Coppertone, no Banana Boat, no Neutrogena. What with that hole in their ozone layer making under-protected surfing tantamount to a death wish, the Aussies were serious about their sunscreens, and American brands didn’t cut it. They made their own—with titanium dioxide, a physical, inorganic sunblocking agent that doesn’t break down in the sun. True, they mixed it with loads of dangerous chemicals—later dubbed “endocrine disruptors”—but the important point was driven home. Now Guerry knew there was a better way.

Finally, in 2001, the Institute of Toxicology in Zurich, Switzerland, published research results flatly stating that methoxycinnamate, oxybenzone, and benzophenone, agents commonly found in commercial sunscreens, were in fact endocrine disruptors—chemicals that interfere with the body’s delicate hormonal balance. In short, the sunscreens he’d been using for years weren’t safe after all!

Guerry began development later that year. First, he was after a formula that guaranteed full, long-lasting protection from UVA and UVB rays without endocrine disruptors or other toxic ingredients. But even that wasn’t enough. He wanted a product that was good for the skin—to make it healthier, younger, and stronger. His passion for formulating a food-grade edible non-toxic sunscreen evolved into the development of other food-grade edible personal care products including food-grade edible alternatives to petroleum-based products like Vaseline® and Neosporin®, and antimicrobial/antibacterial chelated silver and zinc oxides which are both bioavailable and biocompatible.