April 24, 2017

Meet Lee Hanson of Guardian Innovations in Northeast

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Lee Hanson.

When approached by a helmet manufacturer in 2010 to re-engineer the decades old football helmet, the Hansons could not say no. After all, they believe that there is a whole lot of success, opportunities and fun on the other side of “yes.”

With one goal in mind – protecting athletes by developing superior sports equipment, Erin and Lee started Guardian Innovations, LLC and created a small team of Georgia Tech young alumni to run the show. They hired their daughter Caitlin Hanson Gouws, Mgt 10, her husband Jacques Gouws, ISYE 09, Matt Simonds, Mgt 11, and Tony Plagman, BA 11, along with Alex Hanson Garner, Georgia State University BBA 11 to build a company that stands by its passion for protecting athletes, and continually develops technologies that can enhance sports equipment.

With their 20+ years of experience owning and operating a technology and material sciences company, The Hanson Group, LLC, the small team created a soft-shell helmet cover that can be snapped onto the face mask of a helmet during practice to reduce the force of impact upon collision experienced by football players, proving that soft-sided helmet technology is superior but the look of the helmet on game day won’t be affected. The Guardian Cap was created from a passion for player safety, a knowledge in material sciences and the known physics behind impact reduction.

The Guardian Cap utilizes exterior padding to improve the engineering structure of the existing helmet. The Guardian Cap™ augments any existing helmet to make it flexible and soft, able to more effectively manage energy and mitigate repetitive, cumulative blows while absorbing up to 33% of the impact in a collision. The Guardian Cap continues to lead helmet advancements – continued use by 500+ programs demonstrate the effectiveness and benefit to athletes on the practice field.

The small team continues to build the Guardian Innovations brand and recognition in the sporting goods industry. Besides the Guardian Cap, the team has reengineered the lacrosse ball developing the Official Ball of US Lacrosse, The Pearl by Guardian™, the first high performance, greaseless lacrosse ball that doesn’t grease or harden over time, and has worked on a handful of other classified sporting goods projects with top names in the industry.

The Guardian goal remains the same: protecting athletes participating in sports that clearly demand advancements in equipment.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It has not always been a smooth road, creating new innovations that are paradigm shifts are difficult. It’s taken a lot of networking in the industries, meetings with lawyers and experts, and investments into proving that our products are worth it.

Guardian Innovations – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Guardian Innovations has a special interest in sports safety and is passionate about introducing better engineered sporting equipment. With years of expertise in engineering and material science, we have created our own products – the Guardian Cap, Pearl Lacrosse Ball, Bio-Based TPE Infill, and Guardian Rock Holds. Guardian also consults with various sporting goods manufacturers on product innovation.

We’re a small company that sees an issue and creates a solution quickly.

Guardian Innovations uses our expertise in engineering and material science to innovate safer sports equipment.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
We’ve have multiple proud moments – our first team to purchase Guardian Caps, being invited to speak to the NFL about technology, knowing that 60,000 Guardian Caps are on athletes today. We’re proud every day when we answer the phone and listen to a coach or parent’s story. This year we had a really proud moment seeing 4-year customer, Clemson University on ESPN practicing with Guardian Caps on their helmets leading up their bowl game and then the National Championship. That was a proud moment. We also just found out last week that we are the winner of the first NFL HeadHealthTECH Challenge, so we’ll be able to further validate the effectiveness of our Guardian Cap.

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