My passion for cannabis ignited in 2008 when I was a college student in Seattle. For my oral thesis I decided to do a presentation on the history of cannabis prohibition and the war on drugs, since I knew little about the topic. During my research I discovered all of the untold wonders of the cannabis plant, and its incredible medicinal, economical, and environmental benefits. I realized that this little plant had so much potential to change the world for the better, and I was appalled by how it had been maligned and outlawed during much of the 20th century.

On November 6th, 2012 I was watching the news and saw that Colorado has just legalized recreational marijuana, and I immediately knew what I had to do. I packed my bags and 2 months later I was living in a Denver hostel, looking for an apartment and any entry point in the cannabis industry that I could find.

My first job was a trimmer at the Denver Clone Store, and my three years at DCS were akin to a cannabis bootcamp. I worked closely with other cultivators, sweating it out in the garden everyday and learned everything that I could about growing high grade cannabis. I even set up a home grow in my studio apartment so that I could experiment with different nutrients and growing methods.

By the end of my time at DCS I was the veg and clone manager, responsible for dozens of mother plants, hundreds of veg plants and thousands of clones. ​

​My next gig was Cultivation Operations Manager at a large scale wholesale grow in Denver, called Tetra. 

There I was able to put all of my newfound knowledge and skills to the test. In the course of a year, with only a skeleton crew and a shoestring budget, I was able to triple their yields, cut their nutrient costs  in half, and maximize their output with simple, yet effective, efficiencies and SOP's.

My next stop was at The Health Center. There I was one of the supervisors of the packaging and processing department, where I learned how a large scale commercial operation efficiently harvests, trims and processes hundreds of pounds of cannabis every month.

After my stint at THC I was thoroughly well rounded in the field of commercial cannabis cultivation, having personally worked at every level from seed to sale. It was time for the next step.

In January 2018 I relocated to sunny Las Vegas, Nevada, where I landed a job with State Flower Cannabis as their Post-Harvest and Processing Manager. Like many new cultivations they were struggling to navigate the murky and confusing rules and regulations of a fledgling, newly established recreational marketplace while trying to maintain top shelf quality cannabis at the same time.

Luckily, I was able to use my years of experience to help them develop an efficient and scalable post-harvest department, effective testing procedures, and a robust and precise inventory management system that met and exceeded all compliance standards while also producing high quality flower, trim and pre-rolls.

I am now their Inventory Control and Compliance Manager and have helped to cultivate a culture of compliance, consistency and quality, and we now boast a sterling reputation with the Nevada CCB. It's certainly not an easy task to accomplish, but nothing worth doing is ever easy.