Repurpose Bowties: From his car to the Emmys.

“This is exactly who we ought to support.”

Ken Sagendorf said it in 2017, when a Regis student brought him an invitation to the Emmys and no way to pay for it. Ken didn’t ask whether the Center could afford it. He asked how many bowties Paul would need “in case you truly blow up the day after.”

“The best that we can do,” Ken told him, “is slingshot you out with more velocity into the world.”

No place to call home.

Paul grew up in Denver and went to Legacy High School in Broomfield. When he came out to his family, he had to move out. For the rest of high school he lived in his car, on friends’ couches, or with a friend.

His physics teacher, Sarah Marks, made sure he didn’t fall behind. In his senior year, his classmates elected him student body president.

Sent home from Honduras.

After graduation he went to Honduras to teach math and science to elementary school kids. When he posted on Facebook that he was dating a guy, the program told him to take it down. He said no. “I’m proud of who I am.” They gave him a few days to find his way home.

Back in Colorado, with nowhere steady to live, he started at Regis. He left after one semester and moved in with friends. That’s where the first bowtie happened.

One in the morning.

At 1 a.m. he watched a program about a family remembering their fallen soldier, and wondered how you keep a person’s personality, not just the flag. He bought a sewing machine at a 24-hour Walmart, learned to sew from YouTube, and cut his first bowtie from a military uniform.

Then he turned a shirt he’d burned on the stove into a bowtie, and people kept asking where it came from. Unpacking a box, he found a bucket list from high school. The first item: own a company by 21. He was 20, so he filed the paperwork.

Then a PR firm in Los Angeles called. Would Repurpose come to the Emmys gifting suite in September?

Two weeks to yes.

One of his professors pulled together a board of advisors, and every answer came back to money. Ken had it. The Center backed Paul because every tie is cut from reclaimed fabric, and because Paul wanted to pay fair wages to people who are often exploited. His sewers, including refugees and LGBTQ+ youth, earn close to double minimum wage.

Within two weeks of the invitation, Paul had everything he needed.

400 bowties at the Emmys.

In September 2017, Paul flew to Los Angeles with suitcases of bowties and built the Repurpose booth in the gifting suite of the 69th Emmy Awards. He handed out 400 bowties. Repurpose was voted best booth, and it sold out the week after.

The first Innovation Challenge.

In the 2017–18 season, Repurpose entered the Center’s first Innovation Challenge. At the Finals in 2018, Paul and Charlee Riggio, Repurpose’s COO, pitched to a full auditorium and a panel of judges.

Repurpose won.