I became interested as a boy being exposed to the cannabis plant as my dad grew for personal use and a hobbiest before he stopped. I grew up with a stigma associated with cannabis, i asked myself what are the positive aspects my curiosity took over i read books forums networked with people whom had more experience than me my friend taught me how to make concentrates my sister taught me how to make edibles at 24
another friend taught me how to grow i worked for an edible company but that was my introduction into the darker side of the industry realizing majority of these companies are in it for the money not so much the people.My sister has an IBD and cannabis helps her inflammation as my dad deals with pain management and has insomnia, i lost my mother to opioids, I became inspired after reading and seeing stories of people being healed by cannabis the very same plant that i grew up believing was a drug.
No real shift in my life. I fell in love when I watched my first plant grow to maturity deep in a hollow a long time ago, at that point I knew that this was what I wanted to do with my life, period. so I read everything, tried every tech I read about, basically pursued it with laser focus. I’ve made sacrifices, screwed up relationships, had moments of extreme self doubt, wondered if I was crazy and should just go be “normal”, heard all the insults all the nay sayers, etc etc… I believe it’s all about to pay off,
Love this share!
Ditch weed and a horticulture degree. 
Learned how to grow mushrooms too 
. That was a hard crop to do under your dorm room desk. 
. My best TC experience.
I know I posted that book.
From the voices in my head
Ethan.
My very first memory in life is in 1975-6 and I enjoyed helping my dad roll his ‘cigarettes.’ Fast forward to being an 18 year old in 1991 and starting to smoke cannabis myself. I knew then that being in this industry was what I wanted to do.
I didn’t have the guts to actually start cultivating until 2005. My wife at the time and I were fed up with the rat race of LA and I was tired of working long, stressful hours as a teacher with very little pay. My best friend, who was growing in Seattle, convinced me to that if I started growing, I could gain freedom. So, we bought a brand new house in Bellingham, WA specially because of the giant crawl space in the daylight basement.
I bought a few books, built a 6-lighter by myself, and started down the path by teaching myself how to grow through discussions, books and forums. The freedom that growing back then gave me was invaluable. I got the chance to spend every day with my young daughters while at the same time forging a passion for cultivating cannabis that hasn’t left me to this day. Those three years in Bellingham are some of my fondest, as the culture in the PNW fits me perfectly.
After that, I moved back to LA and began growing in larger and larger spaces. Then, I was back in WA for the start of recreational in 2014 and learned how to grow at real scale. Since 2015, I’ve been back in SoCal and the stakes just seem to keep getting higher. There’s problems with legalization, for sure, but it’s still rewarding to grow great weed and I’m having fun navigating what is now an actual ‘industry.’
Good friend was the Managing Director for www.cwcbexpo.com and hired me to run Sales!
Hello All,
here I go on my first forum post and what a great place to start (from the beginning)! To get the full story out, I guess i need to go back to where I fell in love with cannabis. It was when I realized that my recreational use (that never stopped after high school), was actually helping me control my anxiety and ADHD. I was low dosing before it was a thing, it was just how I controlled what I call “my crazy”. Flash to now, I low dose instead of taking any pharmaceutical drugs to control my type-a crazy behavior. I still have a great work ethic, tract-record and a steady life-path (all the things I was told would not happen if I didn’t put down the weed and pick up the pills…). When a friend of mine started a Supply Chain business (Cannabis Business Opportunities) and reached out to me to hear her ops team (because of my purchasing and project management background), it was what I’d been waiting for. Since accepting the position, it’s been a blur of excitement and here we are today. I couldn’t be more excited to help create history with all of you lovely people.
That a good story.
Since I been in horticulture longer than most.
My favorite pot story is my grandfather about his first time smoking pot.
It has to be about 1918 for his ages to work out.
St. Louis circa 1918. My grandfather was 15 years old. And in the summer it was desirable to exit the city and go to the country. (Basically, the air was smelled exceptional)
They would go by train to the marrmac river. To town about 30 min today if know traffic.
This being “Missoura” 1918 things are not so civilized as today. So my grandfather and most of his high school class all went to this town. 50 teen age boy descend into town for a month. One side of town you purchased liqure and groceries. And near the camp ground was the uther side of town. Here he purchased pot from a man that my grandfather said must have been seventy, a smile like a baby. This little “black” man was just laughing and gigglings saying “Look girls all the white boys are to beg for some pot! Should I sell them some?” Now the girls start laughing. (Girls meant fifty year old mature women.)
The bought there paper bag of weed and papers.
And be back once a week for the summer. My grandfather said it was the same thing until the old man dies when I was about 20. Mr Sam was his name. Now pass me the pipe how long have you been smoking and I bet your still a vergin.
My grandfather Mendle “Paw” about 1977.
We at CO2 GRO Inc had been dissolving CO2 for accelerating algae growth since 2009. We did scientific grow trials hydroponically on lettuce (results very positive) and peppers (results negative) in 2013. In early 2017 with the return of now CEO John Archibald, we moved to above ground CO2 Foliar Spray on plant leaves after connecting the dots to our aquaponics and hydroponics work. After filing for a provision PCT patent and raising money to do commercial and scientific grow trials and tests, the cannabis industry found us.
My husband has epilepsy. He hasn’t had a seizure since June of 2007 using cannabis oil exclusively as his only anti-seizure med (with none of the scary side effects of other anti-seizure meds). With our construction backgrounds, it was a no brainer to merge our respective expertises with something that we both became so passionate about–he owns a cultivation facility in Colorado about 5 minutes from my office at Surna.
Nick
We received calls for people who use our aluminum products in the food service side looking for sizes to fit their trays and racks. Once that started we looked at the industry as a whole from growing, trimming, drying, processing, transporting, need for NSF produced edilbles, and facilities that would be in compliance with NSF standards.
thanks
Bob with New Age
Interesting how many people find their way into cannabis from industries (many previously adverse to cannabis) that never had anything to do with cannabis or even horticulture! Thanks for sharing @bob2!
I took on a new job with a company (Extreme Microbial Technologies) that a friend of mine referred me to totally out of the blue. I would not say that I am totally “in” the cannabis industry yet as I am just a baby at this point and still learning as much as I can. But that is the thing about me…I am FASCINATED by new things. I love to learn and especially love to learn about things from others who are passionate about what they do and/or what topic they are dropping knowledge on. Joining EMT and helping companies with their air and surface purification issues has opened up a whole new world to me. I am definitely one of those individuals who has lived his life in a protective bubble (or my head in the sand) and being able to go into several cannabis grow houses and meet so many awesome people in an industry that is growing in a way I was completely oblivious to has been a ton of fun.
So, I am excited to meet as many of you as possible and to learn new things from each of you as well as to drop some helpful knowledge from time to time myself that will hopefully also benefit the community as a whole and several of you individually.
Super cool story @IanCaine! I grew up in SoCal myself and my best friend moved up to the PNW after graduating HS and has been going back and forth between the two, just like you, ever since as he too has feet in both cultures. I just thought that was cool how you explained that.
Anyway, I’m going to be in the SoCal area next week and would love to meet you in person if possible. We have some pretty cool tech that is hugely beneficial to cannabis growing, specifically for reducing/eliminating mold, PM, and other bacteria/microbes. If you are willing to spend 30 minutes with me, I can walk you through it and see if it is a fit for you.
I love these stories and I want to hear more from our new members! I am bumping the topic so I can hear from more of you in our community – how did the cannabis industry find you? 
Great topic!!
Cannabis was first introduced to me 31 years ago when I was 13 years old. I tried it a few times to be cool and fit in the “in crowd”. By the time I turn 15 I was smoking almost daily because I enjoyed the high. For the next 15 years or so I smoked to have fun, to relax etc… At the age of 30 I had my first battle with cancer. The Chemo was killing me. Back then they still used a real nasty one call Bleomycin and it really did a number on my body. At that point in my life Cannabis went from a want to a need. It was the only medicine that helped me feel normal. 6 years later (still smoking) I go my second round with the big “C”. This time I was ready! I knew what I needed to do to stay healthy while Big Pharma tries to kill me. Won the second round and didn’t even have to stop working.
Now I am 5 years cancer free and still smoking but for different reasons than when I was younger. I had been working in the water treatment industry for a few year when I went through the second round and my neighbor was doing a small indoor grow. He started asking me about water and how he should be treating it and I knew then I want to do something for this plant that helped saved my life. I really started digging in and learning as much as I could about treating water and getting my WQA certs. Now I work for a company that gives me the tools to be able to work within the Cannabis industry and I get to talk shop with growers all day. It just feels good being in a position to be able to help.