Even Noggin Boss has problems.
But the popular oversized hat company, co-founded by Grand Canyon University alumni Gabe Cooper and Sean Starner, can look inside – literally and figuratively – for a possible solution.
At Saturday’s Entrepreneurial Challenge at Canyon Ventures, students Ian Miller, Caleb Graffam and Maddie Lambertson successfully pitched “Baby Boss” to resolve the dilemma of how to use the excess foam that is carved out from Noggin Boss hats and discarded after being cut.
The trio won $2,000 in prize money as selected by a panel of three judges from the event's host, Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs.
Miller, an entrepreneurial studies major who served last spring as president of the IDEA Club, Graffam, a business entrepreneurship alum, and Lambertson, daughter of College of Engineering and Technology Dean Paul Lambertson who is headed to Liberty University, joined forces to find a way to monetize the foam in the form of a baby-sized hat that resembles the Noggin Boss look.
The smaller hat, according to the winning group, can serve as an add-on to current Noggin Boss customers and is suited for showers, reveals, birthdays and holidays – at a lower cost. Baby Boss would use about 90 percent of the foam, they added.
After hearing Noggin Boss’ problem from Cooper, Miller thought: “How do we build something that aligns with his original product? There's a number of things you can do with Styrofoam, but we want to make sure that whatever we build aligns with the brand identity that he's already created and limits the strain that's put on his manufacturing process.
“Since he already has the systems in place to build this exact same product, just bigger, we figured we could do the exact same thing, but with a smaller hat, and we can just target a different customer segment.”
Dennis Brode, ACBSP chairman of the board of directors, and fellow ACBSP officials, Paige Faircloth and Kelly Lorigan, have wanted ACBSP to develop stronger ties with industry and business.
Brode watched a similar pitch event last summer involving high school and college students from the Dayton, Ohio, area. He contacted Ed Slover, Colangelo College of Business assistant dean, about partnering with GCU for a similar event in advance of the annual ACBSP convention this week in Phoenix.
“Why don’t you let me put this together,” Slover told Brode.
Three groups listened to Cooper explain how his business started – with a big lift from an appearance on Shark Tank in 2022 – to landing licenses with major professional sports leagues but seeking alternative solutions to use the foam carved out of the hat’s shell.
Each group spent at least two hours concocting their proposed solution after hearing Cooper’s speech, which started with a video of Noggin Boss’ presentation to the Shark Tank sharks.
GCU students Kara Hairston, fall 2025 Canyon Challenge winner, and Hudson Harmon and alumnus and Powder Pal owner Lucas Patten took an ecological approach and performed a rap song to conclude their pitch. The trio pushed for Generated Materials Recovery, a business specializing in foam fabrication plant recycling, and was awarded the second-place prize money of $1,000.
At the end of the competition, Brode praised the students for sacrificing a Saturday in June to compete while sharing words of wisdom from an Aeroseal executive, a company that provides environmentally minded sealing products for houses and buildings.
“The hardest thing is not teaching skills. It’s developing people who can think on the job,” Brode said. “And building a culture of critical thinking and adaptability while deeply intentional is not easy to sustain.
“As you get on your entrepreneurial journey, that is something that will serve you well. Obviously, you guys are critical thinkers. The solutions you came up with are amazing. ... Culture is something that is absolutely huge. Sustaining (culture) is critical for an organization.”
GCU News senior writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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