Angle Center Year in Review: A Year of Building, Pitching, and Growing

This year, the Angle Center for Entrepreneurship became a more visible part of student life at Endicott.

The year included the fall LEGO competition, the Gulls with Grit Speaker Series, student pop-up shops, the Keurig speaker event, and a much larger version of Spark Tank. Each event gave students a different way to engage with entrepreneurship. Some students built with their hands. Some sold products in the lobby. Some listened to alumni talk honestly about starting something after graduation. Others stood on stage and pitched ideas they had worked hard to develop.

What stood out most this year was the variety. Entrepreneurship was not presented as one narrow path. It showed up through creativity, product thinking, marketing, engineering, storytelling, small business ownership, alumni experience, and student ideas that were still taking shape.

There was also a clear shift in energy. Events felt more intentional. Marketing became stronger. Student stories were brought forward more often. The Angle Center became easier to notice, and for many students, easier to understand.

Spark Tank 2026 Raised the Bar

Spark Tank looked different this year.

What had been a smaller pitch competition became a much larger event experience. With a record 33 applicants and 10 finalist teams selected for the live competition, Spark Tank 2026 showed how many students at Endicott are thinking seriously about ideas, products, services, and businesses.

This year’s event moved into Cleary Lecture Hall, which gave the competition a more polished setting. The theme, “Choose Your Own Adventure,” fit the experience well. Every student who pitched had to make choices about their idea, their story, their business model, and how they wanted to present themselves in front of judges and an audience.

The event also became more visual. With support from Endicott’s marketing team, finalists were featured through interviews, headshots, video production, and event-day content. That changed the feel of the competition. The finalists were not just names on a program. They became students with stories, goals, and ideas that the campus could follow.

Spark Tank 2026 became more than a pitch competition. It became a moment where student work was taken seriously and given a real stage.

Gulls with Grit: Alumni Entrepreneurs Return to Campus

This fall, the Angle Center hosted the Gulls with Grit Speaker Series, which brought Endicott alumni back to campus to speak with current students.

The series featured Eli Wilson, Kara Stingo, Daniel Whalen, Daniel Skane, and Taylor Skane. Each speaker had a different story, but the value of the series came from how familiar their paths felt. They were not distant examples of success. They were Endicott graduates who had sat in similar classrooms, asked similar questions, and eventually found their way into building something of their own.

The conversations gave students a more honest look at entrepreneurship after college. The speakers talked about the work behind their businesses, the uncertainty that comes with starting something, and the decisions they had to make along the way.

For students, that matters. It is one thing to hear about entrepreneurship in theory. It is different to hear from someone who was recently in your position and can speak plainly about what it actually took to get started.

Keurig Speaker Event: Brand, Product, and Innovation

One of the year’s speaker highlights was the Angle Center’s Keurig speaker event, moderated by Keveen Delgado.

The event featured Tammy Hegarty, former Keurig VP/GM of Direct-to-Consumer eCommerce and Digital Marketing; Ian Tinkler, former Keurig VP of Brewer Engineering; and Paul Metaxatos, Principal and Co-founder of Motiv, a Boston-based creative agency.

The panel gave students a chance to hear how different parts of a major consumer brand come together. Tammy spoke from the perspective of digital marketing and direct-to-consumer strategy. Ian brought the product and engineering lens. Paul added the creative and branding side.

That mix made the conversation useful. Students could see that innovation is not limited to one role or one department. A product becomes real because many people contribute to it from different angles. Someone has to understand the customer. Someone has to build the product. Someone has to shape how the brand feels and how people experience it.

For students interested in entrepreneurship, the event offered a practical look at how ideas move through teams, decisions, and markets before they become something people recognize.

Entrepreneurship Starts with Building: The Fall LEGO Competition

This fall, the Angle Center hosted a LEGO competition that gave students a simple and creative way to practice problem-solving.

The competition was hands-on, which made it feel different from a typical event. Students had to build, adjust, communicate, and make decisions in real time. It was fun, but it also reflected a basic part of entrepreneurship: you rarely get everything right on the first try.

Events like this matter because not every student immediately sees themselves as an entrepreneur. Some students may not have a business idea yet. Some may not feel ready to pitch. The LEGO competition gave them a way to participate without needing a finished concept or a formal plan.

It made entrepreneurship feel more approachable. Sometimes the first step is not writing a business model. Sometimes it is building something with other people and learning how you think under pressure.

Pop-Up Shops Brought Student Businesses to Life

The Angle Center’s pop-up shops gave student, alumni, faculty, and local entrepreneurs a chance to bring their products directly to the Endicott community.

These events created a real marketplace on campus. Vendors set up tables, shared their stories, sold products, answered questions, and got feedback from students, faculty, and staff.

For student entrepreneurs, the pop-ups offered a useful kind of experience. They had to think about how their table looked, how to explain what they were selling, how to price their products, and how to handle conversations with customers. Those are small details, but they are the details that make a business feel real.

The pop-up shops helped turn the Angle Center into a more active space for student business and campus connection. They also gave students a low-pressure way to test their ideas in public and learn from how people responded.

How This Year Changed the Angle Center

This year felt like a turning point for the Angle Center.

The events became bigger, but they also became clearer. There was more attention on how events were presented, how students were invited in, and how stories were shared before and after each program.

Spark Tank became a larger production with a stronger event identity. Gulls with Grit brought alumni stories back to campus. The Keurig event connected students with leaders in marketing, engineering, product development, and creative strategy. Pop-up shops gave entrepreneurs a place to sell and test their products. The LEGO competition gave students a creative entry point into entrepreneurial thinking.

Together, those events helped show that entrepreneurship is not only for business students. It can belong to anyone who is curious, willing to build, or interested in solving a problem.

The biggest change was momentum. The Angle Center became more visible across campus, and the work happening inside it became easier for students to understand.

By the Numbers

This year included:

• 33 Spark Tank applicants

• 10 Spark Tank finalists

• A new Spark Tank venue in Cleary Lecture Hall

• Student interviews, headshots, and event-day video production

• The Gulls with Grit Speaker Series

• Student speakers including Eli Wilson, Kara Stingo, Daniel Whalen, Daniel Skane, and Taylor Skane

• A Keurig speaker event moderated by Keveen Delgado

• A fall LEGO competition

• Multiple pop-up shop opportunities

• Student, alumni, faculty, and local entrepreneur vendors

• Stronger collaboration with Endicott’s marketing team

• More visibility for entrepreneurship across campus

Looking Ahead

This year created a stronger foundation for the Angle Center moving forward.

The next step is to keep building on that momentum. That means making events easier for students to discover, continuing to highlight student entrepreneurs, creating more opportunities for students across all majors, and keeping the Angle Center visible throughout the year.

Whether students are pitching at Spark Tank, selling at a pop-up shop, attending a speaker event, joining a creative competition, or simply exploring an idea for the first time, the goal is to give them a place to start.

The Angle Center is becoming a place where students can build, test, pitch, connect, and take the next step with more confidence.