High Five: Jeremy Shechter

What’s the biggest challenge facing the cannabis industry right now, and how are you and/or your company addressing it?

The biggest challenge facing the industry lies in how many companies tend to treat their employees and the subsequent loss of produtivity and profits. The industry is truly less about plants and products and more about people- people get into the industry out of passion, but then we see over and over again that they tend to be undervalued by owners. I am a major advocate on behalf of workers in the cannabis industry and love to work with owners to help create a workplace and culture that fosters an environment of appreciation, ownership, and overall employee satisfaction. It is not always just about pay or benefits, and a lot of times the little details matter a lot when it comes to how satisfied employees are in their roles and careers.

Where do you see the most exciting opportunity for growth and innovation in cannabis?

I think we will see a lot of growth and innovation in the genetics of cannabis. We have a completely out-of-control and wild web of breeders and different genetics in the space that has become impossible to truly validate or track. You can get a pack of seeds of one cultivar and each seed can have completely unique phenotypes to the rest of the seeds. We need to really wrangle this in to have better consistency, traceability, and expectations when it comes to cultivar performance and selection

What’s one piece of advice you would give to someone looking to break into the cannabis industry?

There are a ton of avenues to getting into cannabis at every point in the supply chain from growing to manufacturing to retail to ancillary businesses. With such a diverse landscape of opportunities, I think the best thing someone can do is to leverage their existing skillset for a similar role in the cannabis industry and see how those skills can be applied.

What is the most important thing you have learned from your experiences in the cannabis industry?

Cannabis is truly a small ecosystem of people and the importance of creating and maintaining strong relationships with people in the industry is magnified. It is important to be nice to people, operate with honesty and integrity, and help others as much as possible. These are important things in the whole business world, but especially so in the cannabis industry.

What do you want your legacy to be as it relates to the cannabis industry?

I would like my legacy to be known as someone that people can trust to do the right thing and to get the job done well. There have been many, many large and public failures in the space and I would like be known for many successful large and public projects that will have defined the industry and helped it move forward in a positive way.