NCIA Cannabis Industry Voice

Adapting During COVID-19 with Dave Roberson, Kukuza, and Javier Hernandez of Humbleroot. Dave Roberson Was on the show in June 2019… a lot has changed since then… Dave Roberson is the CEO of Kukuza Associates, a business advisory firm that solely focuses on the finance and accounting needs of cannabis companies. Its rapid assessment evaluates cannabis companies’ finance readiness and agility; and...

Improving Product Safety And Distribution Tyler Williams, CSQ. Tyler is the founder and Chief Technical Officer of Cannabis Safety & Quality (CSQ). Over the years, Tyler has diligently worked with various industry stakeholders and conducted sample audits on several cannabis cultivators and manufacturers to create the first global cannabis safety & quality Certification Scheme. Tyler curren...

Black Dog LED With Kevin Frender who serves as Chief Technology Officer and Chief Science Officer. Kevin has been growing indoors under artificial lights in Colorado for over 25 years, using every commercially-available lighting technology available along the way. Over the years he has grown thousands of different kinds of plants, from lettuce, peppers, and tomatoes to mangoes, orchids, and water...

Community And Cannabis with Debby Goldsberry, CEO of Magnolia Wellness. Debby has nearly 30 years of experience as a leader in the medical and adult-use marijuana industry. Magnolia Wellness, an award-winning dispensary in Oakland, CA, and She also co-founded the Berkeley Patients Group (BPG) medical cannabis collective in 1999, directing its growth for over 10 years, from 1999 - 2010. Goldsberry...

Equity Scholarship Programs and Webinars with Tahir Johnson is a Membership Manager and DEI Coordinator for the National Cannabis Industry Association. He is responsible for driving membership and expanding the organization’s presence on the East Coast. Tahir was born in Trenton, NJ, and has resided in the Washington, D.C. area since attending Howard University, where he majored in Marketing. Firs...

Cannabis Facilities In COVID-19 with Andy Poticha. Andy is a Principal at Cannabis Facility Construction, a national, full-service cannabis facility design-build industry leader. Since 2015, the company has renovated more than 30 cultivation facilities, processing centers, and dispensary projects in nine states across the country. Andy has been on the show once before about a year ago, so we’ve he...

Day to Day NCIA During COVID-19 with Aaron Smith, NCIA’s CEO and Co-founder, who Bethany has had the pleasure of working for since January 2014 when she moved to Denver to begin working at NCIA. Aaron is originally from Santa Rosa, California, but spends more than half of his time in Denver. We chat about what’s fresh and new at NCIA that we rolled out this year. First of all, Diversity, Equity &a...

The Hurdles For A Cannabis Startup with Ryan Douglas of Ryan Douglas Cultivation. As Master Grower from 2013 to 2016, he directed cultivation for Tweed Inc., Canada’s largest licensed producer of medical cannabis and the flagship subsidiary of Canopy Growth Corporation. As one of the company’s first employees, he helped drive the organization’s early success by designing the production facility, s...

The Georgia medical cannabis legislative roll out with Taylor English Duma LLP's Reggie Snyder. Taylor English Duma LLP is based in Atlanta, Georgia, but boasts a full-service firm with 175 attorneys including a geographic scope of remote lawyers situated across the country, doing business also in California, Florida, D.C. New York, Tennessee, Texas, and so on, serving over 15 industries, Regg...

Government Funding For The Cannabis Business with Shane Pennington of Yetter Coleman. Yetter Coleman is a litigation boutique specializing in high-stakes business and technology litigation around the country. Shane is recognized as a “Texas Rising Star” in Appellate by Thomson Reuters’ Super Lawyers. He was also a panelist on a recent NCIA webinar "Just Say No - Keep the DEA Out of Cannabis Re...

Full integration while expanding your product line with Michael Bostarr, Director of Strategy and Implementation of SPARC. Michael is a passionate organizer who produced Blunt Talks San Francisco, and helped bring to life Meadow's first-ever camping retreat -Meadowlands. He is former Chief of Staff at Kin Slips and Michael is now the Director of Strategy and Implementation at SPARC. He is a vo...

Parallels between the wine and cannabis industry with COO of Fumé, Elissa Hambrecht. Founded in 2017, Fumé Brands is a vertically integrated cannabis company, operating four businesses from cultivation through retail. With active cultivation, manufacturing, and distribution channels, Fumé Brands recently launched its first consumer brand LAKEGRADE, and plans to launch other thoughtfully crafted ca...

Cannabis and Taxes: The Future of Compliance with Calvin Shannon from Bridge West CPAs and Nick Miller from Greenspoon Marder. Bridge West CPAs, where Calvin Shannon is principal, is one of the first accounting firms in the world to focus solely on the cannabis and hemp industries. Since 2009, the practice has expanded to more than 400 cannabis and hemp clients nationwide. Greenspoon Marder is a n...

Regenerative Cannabis Cultivation with Tina Gordon and Michelle Carter. Today Bethany will be handing the mic over to Jacob Policzer for this conversation on a very special episode of NCIA's Cannabis Industry Voice. Jacob is with The Cannabis Conservancy and Sun and Earth Certified and is on NCIA’s Cannabis Cultivation Committee. So What is regenerative agriculture? We'd say that it’s a ho...

Shifts In Cannabis Stigma During COVID-19 Autumn Shelton, Chief Financial Officer of Autumn Brands. Autumn is a partner as well as CFO of Autumn Brands, a 50 percent woman-owned cannabis business located in sunny coastal Carpinteria, Santa Barbara County, California. In her position as CFO, Autumn is a strategic decision maker for the family farm, which started in Holland more than 100 years ago....

Advanced Transpiration Solutions with Adrian Giovenco from InSpire. Adrian is a passionate engineer with over a decade of experience designing, selling, and commissioning HVAC and process systems throughout North America. Recognizing that there is a knowledge gap around fully understanding plant transpiration rates and how they impact controlled environments, he founded InSpire to focus on Advance...

Meadow is a software company built from the ground up for California cannabis, and Y-Combinator's first start-up to operate in the cannabis space. Meadow’s all-in-one platform allows dispensaries to sell products, manage menus and inventory, reward customers, dispatch delivery and pick-up orders, and create exceptional in-store experiences for customers. Meadow has been Headquartered in San Fr...

The future of Colorado Cannabis with Jonathan Singer. Jonathan is the State Representative for District 11 in Colorado and has been based in the city of Boulder since 2012. There he serves as the Chair of Public Healthcare and Human Services Committee. He has a background in social work, including work as a peer educator at the Boulder County Safehouse, counseling, and advocacy for abused and negl...

Cannabis industry talent acquisition with Bryan Passman. Bryan is the founder of the cannabis industry talent acquisition firm Hunter Esquire and has more than 18 years of experience in executive search and recruitment. Founded in 2017, the experienced team is dedicated to providing a full-service, white-glove approach to every one of our clients. We are happy that “Cannabis Is Essential” during t...

The future of tradeshow marketing with Rhiannon Anderson, Chief Marketing Officer at Steelhead Productions. Rhiannon has served as the CMO and Co-Owner at Steelhead Productions, who specialize in custom rental exhibits for some of the most exciting brands in the country and has been awarded Exhibitor Magazine’s Top 40 Providers in the event industry. Rhiannon oversees all of Steelhead’s business d...

Environmental assistance for small businesses with Kaitlin Urso. Kaitlin is from the CO Dept of Public Health, her title there is Environmental Consultant/ Project Manager/ Small Business Assistance Program Specialist. In her role, she protects Colorado's air, land, and water quality by enabling small business owners/operators to achieve, maintain and go beyond compliance with federal and stat...

Actionable analytics in seed-to-sale with Colton Griffin, CEO of Flourish Software. Some operators in our industry see seed-to-sale tracking as a necessary burden and most legal states have mandatory or required systems, such as METRC. While operators have the option to use add-on supplementary software, Colton breaks that down for us about states like Oklahoma, Florida, Nevada, and Colorado. Flou...

Energy Usage Issues In Cannabis Facilities with Brian Anderson. Brian is a founding partner of architecture and design firm Anderson Porter Design. He also serves on NCIA’s Facilities Design Committee and has over 26 years of experience in the field of architecture, and over six years of concentration in architecture for the Cannabis Industry. Brian also brings design experience with a specializat...

A homegrown legal and business advisory firm dedicated to cannabis in Massachusetts with Blake Mensing, Founder and Chief Counsel, of The Mensing Group and Counsel to Hoban Law Group. and brings a no-nonsense approach to cannabis law in Massachusetts. The Mensing Group is first, and only, homegrown legal and business advisory firm solely dedicated to cannabis in Massachusetts. In his capacity as a...

Beyond Seed To Sale with Strimo CEO, Helkin Berg. Strimo is a business-performance platform that helps cannabis operators go beyond seed to sale, offering solutions to improve data collection, streamline efficiencies, and manage growth. Developed by industry leaders and pioneers, Strimo integrates cultivation, manufacturing, accounting, and dispensary management for the legal cannabis and hemp ind...