Pubdate: Fri, 01 Jan 2016
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2016 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Jason Blevins

AS POT GROWS, SKILLS IN DEMAND

Accidental Marijuana Entrepreneurs Find a Career in the Industry.

Ridgway - Eric Jacobson scoops up a handful of rich soil. The largest 
organic marijuana grow on the Western Slope soon will take root in this dirt.

"Perfect sandy loam," he says, kicking through snow a few yards from 
the gurgling Uncompahgre River. "You don't dare build homes on this. 
There's a higher and better use for this land than 3acre ranchettes."

If you told Jacobson a decade ago that he'd be emerging as one of 
Colorado's top marijuana entrepreneurs, the father of three and 
longtime hydroelectric power plant developer would have laughed and 
said something like: "Only if everything in my life has gone horribly awry."

Jacobson is an accidental marijuana entrepreneur - one of many in 
Colorado who find their traditional skills in areas such as finance, 
real estate and the trades in high demand as the cannabis industry 
matures. Two cultures are blending along theway: advocates who 
pursued a life around marijuana but labored in secret, and newcomers, 
such as Jacobson, who never considered cannabis in their career plans.

"You've got these guys who have spent their whole lives growing in 
the basement, and they are a bit crazy, in a nice way. But they are 
from the old tribe," says Jacobson, who in early December closed on a 
40- acre certified-organic herb farm in Ridgway where a Front Range 
hash oil manufacturer is planning to grow organic pot. "And then 
you've got people like me, who really can't tell the difference 
between growing marijuana and having a machine shop that makes bolts. 
"It's a product where there's demand," he said. "And if you are a 
manufacturer at heart, you provide what the market wants, and you 
don't put this moral weight on it."

A decade ago, Meg Sanders was volunteering at her kids' schools, 
helping the football booster club and working at a private equity 
firm. She didn't think about marijuana. She didn't consider it an industry.

Now, in her fifth year as CEO of Mindful, she's the boss of one of 
Colorado's larger marijuana growers and retailers. The blending of 
marijuana culture with a business culture, she says, "is one of the 
most interesting dynamics I've ever seen."

"I truly don't think this industry will turn into the best it can be 
without the two cultures learning how to honor each other," says 
Sanders, who travels the country-most recently to Tennessee - helping 
craft legislation to legalize medical marijuana sales.

Uniting the old school with the new school is a trying task, she 
says, but once both sides recognize the power of a unified voice, the 
sooner the cannabis industry will thrive on a national level.

"I hear both sides saying the same things about what needs to happen, 
but they are going through different motions to get there. And 
therein lies the conflict," Sanders said. "I wish I could figure out 
a way to create more of a coalition between the activism side and the 
business side."

There is an understandable wariness among lifelong marijuana people 
about these newcomers - especially those who don't use pot.

"So many people sacrificed their lives - went to jail or even worse- 
and all they did to make them a criminal was have this fascination 
with a plant," says Mike Eymer, who spent most of his adult life 
growing marijuana and now is a travel agent and owner of Colorado 
Cannabis Tours. "Still, it's refreshing to see all this new blood in 
the industry. I think it's mixing well ... but I don't like to hear 
from people who own marijuana companies but have never tried 
marijuana before. No one would work in the brewing business and say ' 
Oh, I've never had a beer before.'"

The moral dilemmas around marijuana are fading. It's a business now.

Deloise Vaden and Elyse Gordon were high school classmates in Denver 
more than 40 years ago. Today, the 60- something pals run Better 
Baked, where since 2009 they have been creating marijuana-infused 
edibles, such as honey candies, butter spread, olive oils, cookies, 
pies and breads.

Baden and Gordon were not bakers when they started the company. Baden 
made handbags and ran an art gallery. Gordon was in real estate.

"It's just a business thing we fell into, but it's something we feel 
strongly about," Baden says. "There are a lot of the medical aspects 
that we like and are important to us."

Baden and Gordon were young adults in the 1970s. They were not 
clueless about marijuana.

"But we never saw ourselves ending up doing this. We never thought it 
would be legal back then," Baden says. "It's just a business we are 
in. We got here in a very roundabout way."

Heidi Keyes was a flight attendant and aspiring artist when she moved 
to Denver six years ago. She liked to smoke marijuana. It stirred her 
creativity when she was painting. Right before recreational marijuana 
was legalized, a friend suggested an idea: Offer a painting class, 
but instead of sipping wine, why not smoke weed?

Today her Puff, Pass & Paint business is thriving. Her weekly 28- 
person classes often sell out, and most have a waiting list. She's 
expanding into Seattle and Portland, Ore.

"I started this as somewhat of a joke and something to do for fun, 
and it has blossomed into a huge project that is expanding 
nationally," says the 29year-old Keyes, who still struggles to talk 
about her business success with friends and family back home in 
Wisconsin. "I fell into this industry 100 percent by accident. I'm so 
glad my life took this turn."

Jacobson shares that sentiment. Born and raised in Eagle County, he 
renovated the BridalVeil hydroelectric power plant above Telluride in 
the early 1990s. He raised his kids on top of the waterfall that 
pours into the box canyon, ferrying them to school by snowmobile in 
winter. He lived there from 1991 to 2010, eventually leaving after 
years of water litigation evaporated his energy and income. He has 
owned the Ouray Hydroelectric Power Plant since 1992.

In the 1990s, Jacobson partnered with a greenhouse company that grew 
tomatoes across the state, developing away to capture steam from 
nearby power plants to heat greenhouses.

The business grew. And when it sold to an even larger farm operation 
in the early 2000s, Jacobson says he took his "big, shiny check" and 
bought a 65- acre former gravel pit with a giant tin barn on the 
Uncompahgre River in Ridgway. He stored his toys in the 10,000- 
square-foot barn where the previous owner had parked cement mixers.

Today, that barn is headquarters for ACME Healing Center, which has 
five dispensaries in southwestern Colorado.

The facility has 800 indoor plants in the winter and more in the 
summer, when it uses old indoor tennis court canopy frames from the 
dormant Cornerstone development up on Dallas Divide as outdoor 
greenhouse supports.

Jacobson, a sort of landlord-partner with ACME owner Chris Sanchez, 
recently joined a venture capital investor to buy Shining Mountain 
Herbs farm across the river.

Tim and Sheila Manzagol will continue to groworganic herbs used in 
medicinal extracts and salves there, just as they have since 1996.

Construction began in mid- December on an 80,000- square-foot 
facility where a tenant will seek green certification for cannabis 
for its proprietary hash oils. The idea is to build the largest 
organic marijuana grow on the Western Slope, Jacobson said.

"I'm convinced this is going to be the Napa Valley of weed and we are 
going to be the Silver Oak," says Jacobson, noting how difficult 
itwould be for an old-school marijuana grower to build the facility 
without outside investors. "It's a fun partnership. We need the 
people who have been growing in basements and in the woods for the 
last 25 years, and they need us. We all get along swimmingly, but we 
are coming from totally different planets."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom