Up and coming: Adriana Cantu and the Cover Cap

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Up and coming: Adriana Cantu and the Cover Cap

Adriana Cantu sports a Cover Cap, an item she designed originally to protect her husband’s head from the outside elements while he worked construction.
Adriana Cantu sports a Cover Cap, an item she designed originally to protect her husband’s head from the outside elements while he worked construction.

Cover Cap protects against weather

Adriana Cantu’s husband works on construction projects all around the United States.  When he complained about the cold, she stayed up nights working on a design to protect his head from the elements.  At the time she was a parent-educator with the  PSJA school district, teaching crafts and sewing, skills that enabled stay-at-home moms to work for others or themselves.

Cantu came up with the Cover Cap which fits inside a hard hat.  She sewed different models of the cap and adjusted them at her husband’s suggestion, before perfecting how the cap attaches to the hard hat.

“When he wore them, coworkers asked where he bought them. He started taking 100-200 with him and selling them. They are the best extreme weather accessory in the industrial market,” she said. The multi-use caps protect the neck front and back as well as the chest and head.  “Welders and roofers love them. They are easy to install and durable.”

Once Cantu retired, she went full time with Cover Cap and started selling in person, on Facebook and a web page. And she made the product better and more marketable.  “The SBDC put me in contact with a company that has flame resistant fabric,” Cantu said. “In the oil field you can’t use anything unless it is flame resistant.”

Now Cantu has two suppliers for flame-resistant material as well as sub-contractors sewing Cover Caps for her.  She personally sews on the label after she passes the cap through a quality inspection.  If she finds a flaw in the fabric or construction, she will use that cap as a sample.

“My husband told me I wouldn’t sell a lot, because they last forever and are washable.  But people lose them, and they keep buying more,” Cantu said. With winter coming on, sales surge for the fleece-lined caps.  They love the desert camouflage and the light blue for summer too.”

Cantu acknowledged she has competition online, but at the moment the flame-resistant, modestly priced Cover Caps have a growing customer base. “I know my product is unique.  At one time, my three sons worked in the oil field. One sent me pictures of people working and wearing my caps.” The sons, of course, are sales reps too.  It’s an easy sell:  a product that makes it easier for workers to do their jobs.

For more information, see cccovercap.com

Story by Rosemary Couture 

Freelance writer Eileen Mattei was the editor of Valley Business Report for over 6 years. Her articles have appeared in Texas Highways, Texas Wildlife Association, Texas Parks & Wildlife and Texas Coop Power magazines as well as On Point: The Journal of Army History. The Harlingen resident is the author of five books: Valley Places, Valley Faces; At the Crossroads: Harlingen’s First 100 Years; and Leading the Way: McAllen’s First 100 Years, For the Good of My Patients: The History of Medicine in the Rio Grande Valley, and Quinta Mazatlán: A Visual Journey.

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